OF CANADA 



HARLES G,D,EOPERTS 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERJCA. 



A HISTORY OF CANADA 



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A 



HISTORY OF CANADA 



BY 

CHARLES G^''D:' ROBERTS 




BOSTON, NEW YORK, LONDON 

LAMSON, WOLFFE, AND COMPANY 

1897 



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Copyright, 1897, 
By LAMSON, WOLFFE, AND COMPANY. 

All rights reserved. 



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Nottaoati 53rc3S 

J. S. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



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To 

COmunO Clarence ^teUrnan 



CONTENTS. 



FIRST PERIOD. 

FRENCH DOMINION :~ THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW WORLD 
EMPIRE. 



CHAPTER I. 



FAGB 



Sections: — i, Introductory. 2, The Northmen. 3, Columbus. 4, The 
Cabots, and Verrazzano. 5, Cartier's First Voyage. 6, Cartier's 
Second Voyage. 7, Cartier's Third Voyage, and de Roberval . i 

CHAPTER II. 

Sections : — 8, France forgets Canada for a Time. The Enghsh in New- 
foundland. 9, The Expedition of de la Roche. 10, Champlain 
and de Monts at St. Croix. 11, Champlain, Poutrincourt, and 
Lescarbot at Port Royal. 12, Biencourt, and the Jesuits in Acadie. 
13, Newfoundland. Henry Hudson 18 

CHAPTER III. 

Sections: — 14, Champlain at Quebec. 15, Champlain explores the 
Ottawa. 16, The Expedition to the Huron Country. 17, The 
Lordship of Canada passes from Hand to Hand. 18, First Capture 
of Quebec by the English. Champlain's Last Days . . -34 

CHAPTER IV. 

Sections: — 19, The Scotch in Acadie. 20, The de la Tours, Father 
and Son. 21, The Struggle between de la Tour and Charnisay. 
22, The Latter Days and Death of Charnisay. Changes in Owner- 
ship of Acadie .......... 46 



CHRONOLOGICAL CHART 




-Lord Durham's Report 1839 
^ Ashburton Treaty 1842 
■^^ Canadian Gov't proposes Confed'n 1858 
Termination of Reciprocity Treaty 
Confederation accomplished 1867 

Manitoba organized 

Red River Rebellion f '870 

Fenian Invasion 
Hal. Fish. Award 1879 
Saskatch'n Reb. 
Can. Pac. Com. 1886 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Sections : — 23, The Work of the Jesuits. 24, The Founding of 
Montreal. 25, The Destruction of the Huron Mission. 26, New 
France and New England. The Jesuits and the Iroquois. 27, Laval. 
Dollard. 28, Dissensions in Quebec. The Great Earthquakes . 59 

CHAPTER VI. 

Sections: — 29, The Sovereign Council; and Land-holding in Canada. 

30, Talon comes to Canada. The English seize New York. 

31, De Tracy comes to Canada, and the Iroquois are chastised. 

32, New France reaches out to the Mississippi and Hudson Bay, 

and secures her hold upon Lake Ontario 74 

CHAPTER VII. 

Sections : — 33, Frontenac comes to Canada. La Salle. 34, Fronte- 
nac's Recall; and la Barre's Folly. 35, Denonville, Dongan, and 
the Iroquois. 36, Kondiaronk, " The Rat," kills the Peace. The 
Lachine Massacre .......... 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Sections : — 37, Frontenac strikes the English Colonies. 38, Phips at 
Port Royal and at Quebec. Madeleine de la Vercheres. Death of 
Frontenac. 39, D'Iberville in Hudson Bay, Acadie, and New- 
foundland. 40, War of the Spanish Succession. Final Conquest 
of Acadie. 41, Repose, Progress, and Western Expansion . . 97 

CHAPTER IX. 

Sections : — 42, The War of the Austrian Succession. Pepperell's Cap- 
ture of Louisburg. 43, Louisburg restored to France. Boundary 
Disputes, 44, The English hold tightens on Nova Scotia. 
45, Fall of Beausejour, and Expulsion of the Acadians. 46, The 
Struggle in the West 115 

CHAPTER X. 

Sections: — 47, The Seven Years' War. Fall of F-ort William Henry. 
48, The Combatants compared. Louisburg once more. 49, Ti- 
conderoga. 50, The Beginning of the End ..... 137 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XL 

PAGE 

Sections: — 51, Wolfe and Montcalm Face to Face. 52, The Plains 

of Abraham. 53, Quebec in English Hands 150 

CHAPTER XII. 

Sections : — 54, Population and DweUings at the Close of the French 
Period. 55, Dress, Arms, Social Customs, Food, etc., during the 
French Period 164 



SECOND PERIOD. 

ENGLISH DOMINION:— THE STRUGGLE FOR RESPONSIBLE 
GOVERNMENT. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Sections: — 56, The Conspiracy of Pontiac. 57, The Quebec Act. 

58, Affairs in Nova Scotia 173 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Sections : — 59, Trouble brewing between England and the Thirteen 
Colonies. 60, The War begun, and Canada invaded by the Revo- 
lutionists. 61, The Revolting Colonies achieve their Independence 182 

CHAPTER XV. 

Sections : — 62, The Loyalists. 63, Experiences of the Loyalists during 
the War. 64, The Loyalists in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and 
Prince Edward Island. 65, The Loyalists in Western Canada. 
66, Conditions of Life among the Loyalists . . . . .194 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Sections : — 67, Lord Dorchester Governor-General. 68, The Consti- 
tutional Act. 69, The Two Canadas — Upper and Lower. 70, The 
Maritime Provinces. 71, Threats of War between England and 
the United States 208 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Sections: — 72, War declared by Congress. 73, 1812. The American 
Plan of Campaign. 74, The Campaign of 1813. 75, The Cam- 
paign of 1814 ........... 224 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Sections: — 76, The North-west; 1789-1835. 77, Strife in Politics. 

Growth in Population. 78, Political Strife in Lower Canada . . 254 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Sections : — 79, Political Strife in Upper Canada. 80, The Struggles 
in Nova Scotia. 81, Political Strife and other Matters in New 
Brunswick. 82, Affairs in Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, 
and Newfoundland .......... 269 

CHAPTER XX. 

Sections : — 83, The Rebellion in Lower Canada. 84, The Rebellion 
in Upper Canada. 85, Lord Durham and his Report. 86, The 
Canadas united. 87, Responsible Government gained in New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia ........ 291 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Sections : — 88, The Rebellion Losses Bill. Confederation proposed. 
89, The Reciprocity Treaty. 90, Prince Edward Island, New- 
foundland, the North-west, and British Columbia .... 319 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Sections: — 91, Growth of Confederation Sentiments in the Canadas. 
92, The Charlottetown Conference, Quebec Conference, and Quebec 
Resolutions. 93, How the Quebec Resolutions were received. 
94, Confederation accomplished ....... 335 



CONTENTS. xi 

THIRD PERIOD. 

CANADIAN DOMINION .- — EXPANSION AND CONSOLIDATION. 
CHAPTER XXIII, 

PAGE 

Sections : — 95, The First Dominion Parliament. 96, Nova Scotia 
reconciled. 97, The Red River Settlement becomes the Province 
of Manitoba ........... 354 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Sections : — 98, British Columbia joins the Dominion. 99, Provincial 
Afifairs. loo, Prince Edward Island joins the Dominion. Change 
of Government. loi, The National Policy. The Fisheries Com- 
mission ............ 368 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Sections : — 102, Causes leading to the Saskatchewan Rebellion. 
103, The Saskatchewan Rebellion. 104, The Canadian Pacific 
Railway .......... ^. . 384 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Sections : — 105, Fisheries Dispute again. 106, Third Dominion Cen- 
sus. 107, Afifairs in Newfoundland up to the Present Day . . 403 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Sections : — 108, Intellectual Progress. 109, Material Progress. 

no, Present Conditions, and the Outlook . . . . -417 



APPENDICES. 

A. British North America Act 443 

B. The Indians of Canada ......... 477 

General Index ...... 481 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



FIRST PERIOD. 

FRENCH DOMINION : — THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW 
WORLD EMPIRE. 



CHAPTER I. 

SECTIONS: — i. Introductory. 2, the Northmen. 3, Colum- 
bus. 4, THE Cabots, and Verrazzano. 5, Cartier's First 
Voyage. 6, Cartier's Second Voyage. 7, Cartier's Third 
Voyage, and de Roberval. 

I. Introductory. — The stage on which the drama of Canadian 
History unfolds may seem to the world an obscure one. A closer 
view, however, will reveal that on this stage some of the gravest 
problems of history have been pressed to a solution ; and we may 
reasonably expect to find in this drama an answer to some of the 
weightiest questions of modern politics. Battles were fought on 
the Rhine, the Elbe, the Danube ; German, Austrian, Spanish 
thrones were shaken to their fall ; navies grappled in Canadian 
the Caribbean, and Mahratta hordes were slaughtered refaSmtothe 
on the rice-fields of India, to decide the struggle which ^°'^^^- 
ended only upon the Plains of Abraham. Now, in these imperial 
domains which Wolfe's triumph secured to British sway, a people 
is taking shape which bids fair to combine the power and genius 
of the two great races from which it springs. In the hands of 
this people it will perhaps rest to decide whether the Empire of 
Greater Britain, built with so much treasure and baptized with 



2 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

SO much blood, will split into pieces or be drawn into a yet closer 
and stronger union. 

The history of Canada ^ falls into three great natural divisions. 
The first of these is the period of French Dominion ; and its 
distinguishing feature is the strife between France and England 
for the mastery of North America. This strife, the real object 
of which was often vague to the eyes of the contestants, was kept 
active by the spur of varying rivalries and needs. Out of a tangle 
of trade jealousies and religious contentions we see it stand forth 
as the central and controUing influence of the period. It supplies 
the connection between incidents and actions which would other- 
The three ^i^^ seem to bear no relation to each other. During 
Canad°ian°* this period the history of Canada is world-wide in its sig- 
history. nificance. It is the concern of nations. The second 

division, lasting from the fall of Montreal, in 1760, to Confedera- 
tion, is the period of English Dominion. Its central feature is the 
struggle of the people for the right to govern themselves, after 
the manner of free Britons in their own land. During this period 
the foundations of Canada's greatness were firmly laid ; but what 
went on within the borders of our scattered provinces was little 
heeded by the world at large. When the right of self-government, 
commonly known as Responsible Government, was gained, it was 
by and by enlarged and secured by a union of the provinces ; 
and on July ist, 1867, Canada entered upon the third div-ision 
of her history, the period of Confederation. Of this the chief 
features are expansion and consohdation, with the growth of a 
national sentiment. And now, having stretched her power over 
half a continent and drawn her boundaries along three oceans, 
Canada becomes a matter of interest to the world and begins to 
feel her hand on the reins of destiny. 

2. The Northmen. — The true sources of history he somewhere 

1 The name "Canada" is probably derived from the Huron-Iroquois word 
" Kanata," which means a village. At the time of Cartier's explorations the name 
applied to the country lying along the St. Lawrence from Isle au Coudres to a 
point some distance above Stadacona. Lescarbot applies the name to the whole 
St. Lawrence valley from Hochelaga (now Montreal) to the Gulf. 



THE NORTHMEN. 3 

in the wonder-land of myth and tradition. Canadian history 
seems to have its proper beginning in that vague atmosphere, 
coloured with adventure and romance, which surrounds the west- 
ward voyagings of the Northmen. Though nothing came of these 
Norse discoveries, they are interesting as the first recorded con- 
tact of our race with these lands which we now occupy. They 
are significant, because they were a direct result of that spirit of 
determined independence which dwells in our blood, xhe west- 
When Harold Harfager, in the ninth century, under- ^^^ ™°the 
took to impose feudalism upon Norway, the Vikings Northmen, 
turned westward their indignant prows, and found a harsh freedom 
in the commonwealths which they established in Iceland and the 
Faroes. But theirs were not a sky and soil to encourage indolent 
content, and ever further westward they pushed restlessly, till, 
about the year 986 a.d., the coast of Greenland was occupied by 
Eric the Red. Soon a strong Greenland colony flourished on the 
western shore, more hospitable then than now, and extended itself 
northward as far as the seventy-fifth parallel. A Greenland colo- 
nist, Beorn by name, being caught in a north-east gale while on 
a coasting voyage, was swept far to the west and south, till he 
sighted unknown shores. His tale stirred up Leif Ericson, who 
presently set forth to explore these " New Lands," as they were 
called (1000 A.D.). The point at which he first touched this 
continent was probably the coast of Labrador, near Hamilton 
Inlet. This region, with its austere soil and sea-line, he named 
Stoneland. Thence sailing south he reached a friendlier shore, 
which he called Bushland. This, in all likeHhood, was the east- 
ern coast of Newfoundland, a region of high plateaus covered 
with thickets. Running westward across the Gulf he 
reached a pleasant country where the wild grapes ^"P^y'S°?°* 

grew, and called it therefore Vineland. Whether Vine- colonizes 
1 J XT r. Vineland. 

land was Nova Scotia or the coast of Massachusetts 

Bay is a question much disputed among historians. Here he 

established a village called Leif's Booths ; and here his brother 

Thorwald built him a new ship, on a headland which they called 



4 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Keelness. From Leif and his followers went forth good reports 
of the western country. Ships from Greenland came yearly for 
cargoes of the Vineland timber, much coveted for masts. A 
leader named Thorfinn Karlsefni made a larger effort to found 
a colony. With one hundred and sixty followers, and horned 
cattle, and grain to sow in the new fields, he led three dragon- 
ships to Vineland and planted his " booths " in a sheltered haven. 
But the work of settlement thus bravely begun went to ruin under 
the arrows of the savages. Then fell a darkness of four centuries. 
Events in Europe opened richer fields to the yellow-haired free- 
booters of the North, and Vineland, Bushland, Stoneland were 
Failure of the forgotten. Even the great Greenland colony, with its 
Norsemen. stone-built cities, its churches and its bishoprics, its 
ambitions and its letters and its trade, lapsed soon into decay. 
The Esquimaux laid it waste ; a hostile fleet completed its de- 
struction ; and dense fields of floe and berg shut in the devas- 
tated coast. Of the visit of the Northmen to America there 
came ^ nothing at last but two Icelandic sagas, in which are told 
the brave adventures of Eric, and Leif, and Thorfinn. 

3. Columbus. — With the name of Columbus we find ourselves 
in the broad daylight of verified history. Though Columbus 
neither knew nor considered the northern portions of the conti- 
nent which he gave to civilization, his achievement is none the 
less a part of Canadian history. It pointed out the way to the 
makers of Canada. The sailing of Columbus into the heart of 
the unknown west, a region which superstitious fancy had peopled 
with strange terrors, was one of the most daring deeds of man. 
It may be regarded as the perfect flowering of that age of ro- 
mantic adventure and restless curiosity. 

When Columbus, after years of such failure and discourage- 

1 The old stone mill at Newport, long supposed to be a Norse relic, was really 
built by a governor of Rhode Island late in the seventeenth century; and the sup- 
posed Norse pictures on the Dighton Rock, in Massachusetts, have proved to be 
the work of Algonquin Indians. A perhaps more credible witness is the Norse 
rock, at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, bearing an inscription in dotted runes, which seems 
to point to the presence of the Norsemen in the nth century. 



COLUMBUS. 5 

ment as would have daunted any heart of less heroic fibre, at 
last set sail from the Spanish port of Palos, his hope and faith 
were fixed upon the finding of a new pathway to India. He 
was in reaHty swept westward by a broad and mighty impulse. 
This impulse was the awakening hunger of the western nations, 
Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England, for a participa- 
tion in the gorgeous traffic of the East, which at that time was 
emptying itself into the laps of the Itahan merchant 
republics. The only way to the treasures of the spice which moved 
islands, to the gold and silks and jewels of Cipango 
and Ceylon, lay through the Mediterranean and the caravan 
routes of Persia, While the Italian cities held control of these, 
their monopoly of the eastern trade was safe. Columbus was a 
skilled mariner, trained in the service of Genoa. An eager stu- 
dent, he knew whatever of geography there was in that day to 
be known. A daring dreamer, he had gathered and woven 
together all there was of floating myth or dim legend that might 
point to the existence of land in the furthest west. He knew the 
world was round, though he little knew how great was its circum- 
ference; and from this knowledge he passed to the belief that the 
new path to the East lay through the West. The grand idea which 
his imagination brooded, together with his services in carrying it 
out, he offered first to his mother land of Genoa. But Genoa did 
not want a new route to the East. Then he turned, but in vain, 
to Portugal. The hopes of Portugal were set upon a The straggles 
passage around the south of Africa, and her captains °^ Columbus, 
were pushing their keels down the coast of that mysterious conti- 
nent. To England and to France Columbus held out his wondrous 
offer ; but these countries were slow and unbelieving. It was to 
Spain he made his most persistent appeal ; and Spain, to her im- 
perishable glory, gave ear. The Queen of Spain was little con- 
cerned with trade ; but she was fired with a dream of winning 
new worlds to the faith of Christ. When Columbus sailed on his 
great voyage, he did so under the patronage of King Ferdinand of 
Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. 



6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

The story of that seventy days' voyage of Columbus, with his 
three cockle-shell craft, and no guide but his faith and the 
tremulous finger of his compass, is one of the heroic ornaments 
of time. On the 12th day of October, 1492, he landed on an 
island of the Bahamas. As he offered up his thanks to God 
amid a throng of mild-eyed natives, he fancied himself upon the 
skirts of Asia. To the dark-skinned inhabitants^ therefore, he 
gave the misleading name of Indians.' Spain, to whom he had 
TT- t ■ t, given an empire beyond the dreams of pride, heaped 
honours upon him and made him Admiral of the 
Ocean. The after voyages of Columbus, and the feats of naviga- 
tors who followed in his track, are not a part of Canadian history. 

4. The Cabots and Other Explorers. — What Columbus had 
discovered was the island-fringe of the continent. Not till 1497, 
when Vasco di Gama was rounding the Cape of Good Hope and 
leading the ships of Portugal to the treasure-houses of India, was 
the mainland of the New World revealed. Then an expedition 
from Bristol, under the leadership of John Cabot, reached the 
continent at a point which is now Canadian territory.^ Cabot 
sailed under charter from Henry VII ; and England was thus 
enabled to claim the North American continent on 

The discov- 
ery of the the ground of first discovery. In this same mem- 
mainland. 

orable year, according to some authorities, a Floren- 
tine' named Amerigo Vespucci also reached the mainland, at a 
point within the tropics. It is pretty certain, however, that Ves- 
pucci never saw the mainland of the New World till 1499, when 
he took part in an expedition which landed on the coast of 
Brazil. He did not lead this expedition ; and it is one of the 
strangest freaks of Fate that a comparatively obscure explorer 
hke Amerigo Vespucci should have been immortalized in the 
naming of two continents.^ 



1 The Indians of the North American continent are described in Appendix B. 

2 Probably a point on the Labrador coast, though some authorities hold it to 
have been the gulf coast of Nova Scotia. 

s Amerigo Vespucci wrote an interesting account of his voyages, and Brazil was 



THE CABOTS AND OTHER EXPLORERS. y 

The achievements of John and Sebastian Cabot, father and 

son, entitle their names to a place near that of Columbus on 

the roll of great discoverers. These men, though sailing from 

the port of Bristol and under the flag of England, were Itahan 

mariners from Venice. The King's charter was held by John 

Cabot and his three sons, the greatest of whom, Sebastian, is 

supposed to have accompanied him on his first voyage. Behind 

their enterprise lay a number of influences. The King wished 

a share in the glory and gain, which Spain was reaping through 

Columbus. The merchants of. Bristol were looking for a great 

trade in stock-fish. Before the eyes of John Cabot himself gUt- 

tered visions of golden Cipango ; and like Columbus 

he appears to have cherished dreams of winning a and English 

^^ ° enterprise, 

new world to the faith of Christ. The Cabots m 

1498 explored the whole coast, from Labrador to South Caro- 
lina. Though the discovery of Newfoundland is credited to 
them, it is sometimes claimed that the Bank Fisheries were 
already known to Biscayan fishermen. However this may be, 
it is certain that English, Norman, Basque, and Breton lost no 
time in flocking to the rich harvest there revealed. In 15 17, 
only twenty years after Cabot's discovery, there were no less 
than fifty vessels on the Banks. In a second expedition, sent 
out in the following year by Henry VII, the Cabots turned their 
sails northward, seeking a way to India. They got as far as the 
•mouth of Hudson's Straits. Then the Arctic ice forced them 
back. In the reign of Henry VIII a new charter was granted 
to Sebastian Cabot, who continued that intrepid search for a 
north-west passage which has lasted nearly down to the present 
day. It is not too much to claim for these Italian mariners that 
they showed the way to English enterprise, and laid the founda- 
tions on which England was to build her maritime and colonial 
greatness. Their deeds are commemorated only in the late 
naming of a barren group of islets near Newfoundland. 

named America in his honour. The name gradually passed to the whole southerni 
continent, and then to the northern continent as well. 



8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Close in the wake of the Cabots followed a Portuguese navi- 
gator, Cortereal, who in the year 1500 visited the coasts of 
Labrador and Newfoundland, and carried away to slavery a 
ship-load of the red inhabitants. In early Portuguese maps all 
this region is marked Terra Corierealis, the Land of Cortereal. 
In 1506 a Frenchman, Denis of Honfleur, visited the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. In 15 18 the Baron de L6ry tried to plant a set- 
tlement on Sable Island. His choice of a site fills one with 
wonder; and utter failure was the only possible result. The 
cattle, however, which he left behind him throve on the sandy 
levels, and their multiplying herds became at length a monument 
to his vain enterprise. The next important visitor to 

Cortereal, 

Denis of Hon- Canadian shores was John Verrazzano. He was a 

fleur, de Lery, . . . . . , _ , t-- 

and verraz- Florentme navigator in the service of the rrench King, 
Francis I. In 1524 Verrazzano hastily examined the 
coast from somewhere on the Carolina shore northward to the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, and declared the whole region annexed to the 
French Crown. From Newfoundland he sailed back to France. 
He had gained much fresh knowledge of the New World's 
Atlantic borders. At the same time he had repaid the hospi- 
tality of the natives by kidnapping a child upon the shore. It 
was by acts like these that the barbarians of America were in- 
structed in the civilization of Europe. 

5. Cartier's First Voyage. — The Old World powers were 
parting the New World between them ; and on the strength of 
Verrazzanc's discoveries France made ready to claim her share of 
the spoil. Though not the first in the field, she outstripped for a 
time the efforts of her northern rivals. Her wise or fortunate 
choice of men enabled her to do this. While English navigators, 
each a picturesque compound of merchant, buccaneer, and hero, 
were trading to Brazil or the Guinea coast, lording it over the cod- 
fish fleets in the fogs of Newfoundland, battling with the ships of 
Spain in the tropics or with ice-floe and famine in the spectral 
Arctic waters, France was entering Canada by the gates of the St. 
Lawrence and making good her hold on half a continent. 



CARTIER'S FIRST VOYAGE. g 

In the early spring of 1534 Jacques Cartier set sail for the 
New World from the illustrious port of St. Malo. Cartier was a 
Breton mariner of good family and repute, strong in the posses- 
sion of court favour. His patron was an enthusiastic young noble, 
Philippe de Brion-Chabot, who was deep in the con- jacques 
fidence of Francis I, and diHgently fostered the King's ^^"^i®"^- 
dream of New World empire. Cartier was well fitted to the task 
now put upon him. About forty years of age, dauntless, keen of 
eye, rugged and lean of countenance, he had successes and intre- 
pidities already on his record. The company with which he sailed 
consisted of about one hundred and twenty men, in two small ships. 

After twenty days of favouring weather they reached the coast 
of Newfoundland. This was on May the loth. Passing through 
the Straits of Belle Isle he viewed with little satisfaction the bleak 
coast of Labrador, which seemed to him Cain's portion of the 
earth. Thence heading down and across the Gulf he ran through 
the Magdalen Islands, coasted along Prince Edward cartier visits 
Island, and came upon the north shore of New Bruns- wick anT^' 
wick, somewhere to the south of Point Escuminac. ^^^p^- 
In the mouth of one of the small streams so numerous in that 
region of water-courses, he found a fertility and abundance that 
delighted all his company. The forests were rich with pine, maple, 
and ash. The meadows were purple with vetch-blossoms. Wild 
berries everywhere tempted the thirsty lip. The voyagers lay 
awake at night and listened with wonder to the noise of count- 
less salmon passing the shallows, or to the wings of innumerable 
wild-pigeons streaming overhead. To add to Cartier's good opin- 
ion of this favoured land, its inhabitants were friendly and few. 
Passing northward the explorers crossed the mouth of Miramichi 
Bay, and came, in early July, to the green and sheltered waters of 
a bay whose shores wavered through a violet haze of heat. Hence 
these waters received the name of Bale des Chaleurs. Leaving the 
bay, whose north shore only he touched, Cartier rounded the east- 
ern promontory of Gasp6. On the Gasp6 shore he set up a cross 
thirty feet high, bearing a shield with the arms of France. This 



lO A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ceremony roused the suspicions of the Indians, whose instincts ap- 
parently detected in it some violation of their rights of sovereignty. 
They were soon appeased, however, with protestations and trinkets. 
Taking base advantage of their confidence, Cartier lured two of 
the young savages into his ship, and carried them away to France. 
His sudden return, after he had sighted the shores of Anticosti and 
reached the very threshold of the St. Lawrence,, was due to his 
dread of the autumn storms. For his treachery to the Indians he 
was afterwards to pay dear. For the blood and tears which stain 
the whole Hne of contact between the Old World races and the 
savages of America, the blame seems to lie chiefly with those 
whose civilization and creed should have made such a reproach 
impossible. The record of France, however, in spite of the bar- 
barity of Cartier and of Verrazzano's cruelties, looks fair enough 
when compared with the records of some of her rivals. 

6. Cartier's Second Voyage. — When Cartier, on the 5th of 
September, reentered in triumph the harbour of St. Malo, he had 
missed by a hair's-breadth the discovery of the great river across 
whose mouth he had sailed ; but he imagined that he had found 
the gateway of the passage to Cathay. The heart of France 
Enthusiasm thrilled to his story. Here was empire to be won, 
Carter -^s "^^"^ here were heathen to be converted, here were riches 
discovenes. ^^ ^^ gathered in. The king, the priest, and the 
trader, all awoke to enthusiasm. On the 19th of May, 1535, 
St. Malo again saw Cartier's sail diminish on the blue horizon, 
speeded by the prayers of France. On this expedition Cartier 
had three small ships.^ In his company were representatives of 
some of the noblest famihes in the kingdom. Presently a storm 
arose and scattered the little fleet ; and it was not till the end of 
Cartier July that they came together again, at their rendez- 

canadawith ^ovl's, on the Straits of Belle Isle. Holding his course 
three ships, j^iore to the northward than on the previous vo3'age, 
Cartier passed a large island which he named Assomption, now 

1 The Hermine, the Petite Hermine, and the Emerillon. 



CAR TIER'S SECOND VOYAGE. n 

Anticosti. To a bay north of Anticosti Cartier gave the name 
of St. Lawrence, in honour of the saint upon whose festival it 
was discovered. The name was destined soon to spread not only 
to the gulf he had just traversed, but also to the great river in 
whose channel he now found himself. Continuing up the river, 
which Cartier learned from his kidnapped Indians to call "the 
great river of Canada," the explorers entered the austere portals 
of the Saguenay, and floated with awe upon the sombre waters of 
that gigantic trough. Here they met Indians in birch-bark canoes, 
with whom they communicated through their guides. Not delay- 
ing to explore 'the Saguenay they resumed their journey up the 
main stream, rounded an island rich in hazels, which they called 
Isle au Coudres, passed the beetling shoulder of Cape Tourmente, 
and came to a spacious green island so abounding in wild vines 
that the delighted voyagers called it the Isle of Bacchus.^ Here 
they cast anchor. Presently from every cdve and inlet came glid- 
ing the. noiseless, yellow, birchen craft of the natives. Distrustful 
at first, the savages were quickly conciliated, and thronged with 
marvelling admiration about the white men and their strange 
ships. 

Above the island the shores contracted sharply and the river 
forced its way between towering battlements of gray rock stained 
with red. On the northern shore the heights broke off abruptly, 
forming that majestic promontory now crowned by the citadel 
of Quebec. Here were huddled the wigwams of Stadacona, the 
savage metropolis of that region; and here Donnacona, the ruhng 
chief, who had visited Cartier at his first anchorage on cartier 
the Isle of Bacchus, extended to the strangers a bar- site of^ *^^ 
barous but ardent hospitality. Under the shadow of Q"^®^^*^- 
the cape a small river emptied itself quietly, and in its mouth the 
Frenchmen found safe harbourage for their ships. 

The Indians were all friendship, but to Cartier's design of 
ascending the river they offered a vehement opposition. Argu- 

1 Now the fruitful and populous lie d'Orleans. 



12 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ment and entreaty failing to dissuade the obstinate stranger, they 
tried to work upon his fears. A clever masquerade was prepared, 
and the Frenchmen, leaning over the sides of their vessels, watched 
with amused perplexity what seemed to be three demons who 
drifted slowly past them in a canoe. These were medicine men, 
adorned with monstrous horns, their faces blackened, their eyes 
glaring with hideous fixity upon the strangers. The chief demon 
yelled a fierce harangue till the canoe had floated some distance 
down the current. Then all three paddled ashore, fell down as 
if dead, and were carried with clamour into a sheltering thicket. 
Thence presently issued Cartier's two savage interpreters, who 
explained that the god Coudouagny had sent three messengers 
to warn the rash white men from their purpose. Dreadful calami- 
ties of storm and frost were predicted for them ; but Cartier 
Cartieras- derided the mummery and went on up the river. He 
La^reMcto ^ook the smallest of his ships, two boats, and a numer- 
Hocheiaga. ^^g following. The further he advanced the fairer grew 
the prospect, the more fertile seemed the soil ; and the natives 
were everywhere friendly. In the shallow expanse of Lake St. 
Peter he ran his vessel aground, but with his boats he pushed on 
undaunted. On the second of October he reached the lovely 
island with its guardian mount, deep in whose green recesses hid 
the town of Hochelaga. 

The voyagers were welcomed to the shore by throngs of danc- 
ing Indians, who overwhelmed them with gifts of fish and fruit 
and corn. On the following morning, led by their delighted hosts, 
they marched through the woods by a well-travelled path, till they 
came out upon an expanse of maize-fields, in the midst of which, 
against the foot of the mountain, rose the triple palisades of 
Hochelaga. These palisades were built with galleries along the 
inside, where heaps of stones were stored for purposes of defence. 

Hochelaga was a good specimen of the Huron-Iroquois 
Hochelaga. & & i- i 

town. It consisted of half-a-hundred large dwellings, 
one hundred and fifty feet long by forty or forty-five feet wide, 
built of poles and covered with sheets of bark. Down the long, 



CAR TIER'S SECOND VOYAGE. 



13 



unpartitioned centre ran a row of fires, and around each smoky 
hearth gathered a family. In the middle of the town was an open 
square, wherein the tribe held its councils. Here the Frenchmen 
were received with joyous reverence, as if they had been half 
divine. The adoring excitement grew as Cartier scattered on all 
sides his presents, — knives, beads, rings, and little sacred images 
of pewter. The head chief of the tribe, a paralytic and helpless 
old man, was brought before Cartier on a mat to be cured of his 
sickness. Cartier was somewhat embarrassed by such faith ; but 
he treated his unexpected patient as best he could with a prayer 
for his soul as well as for his body, touched him, and sent him 
away happy if not healed. Then came all the sick and infirm of 
the tribe to be treated in like manner. This done, Cartier with- 
drew himself and his little band from the grateful attentions of 
their hosts, and set out for the mountain. The Indians guided 
them to its summit; and with exulting eyes Cartier looked out 
across the luxuriant forest, already flaming in scarlet and amber 
under the touch of the early frosts. The mountain he called 
Mount Royal ; and where his eyes then rested so well content sits 
now the queenly city of Montreal. 

From Hochelaga Cartier hastened back to Stadacona, built a 
fort on the shore by the ships, and made ready for the winter. 
He knew not what to make ready for, however ; and before the 
little colony was half prepared the violence of the season broke 
upon them, such cold and such storms as they had never dreamed 
of. It seemed to them as if the world could nevermore emerge 
from the snows which overwhelmed it. Soon a malignant scurvy 
broke out among them, and they knew not how to combat it by 
diet or medicine. Out of their company of one hun- 

Cartier 

dred and ten men twenty-five died, and all the rest winters at 
but three or four tottered on the brink of the grave. 
To hide the weakness of the garrison, Cartier made those who 
were strong enough pound on the walls with hammers, that 
the savages might think there were vigour and activity within. 
But the savages themselves were sore beset with the same plague, 



14 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



and could give little heed to the strangers. At last Cartier learned 
from an Indian that the disease might be cured by a decoction of 
a certain evergreen which he called anieda (probably a spruce or 
arbor-vitse), and this remedy the Frenchmen tried at once. They 
tried it with such desperate eagerness that in six days they con- 
sumed a good-sized tree ; and it proved so efficacious that the 
disease was stayed, and the invalids rose swiftly back to health. 

When spring released the ships and brought cheer again to the 
exiles, Cartier made ready for the return to France. First, having 
heard from the Indians glowing tales of gold, silver, red copper, 
rubies, and a race of one-legged men to be found in the interior 
country, he resolved that he would have witnesses to corroborate 
his story. Luring the hospitable Donnacona and four 

Cartier kid- ^ ° ^ . 

naps the hos- lesser chiefs into an ambush, he imprisoned them in 

pitable chiefs. ^, ^ ,. , . , . . 

the ships. The Indians were told that their chiefs 
were going away of their own free will, being eager to meet the 
French King and view all the wonders beyond sea. Then, having 
erected on the shore a cross thirty feet high with the fleur-de-Hs 
affixed to it, Cartier on the i6th day of May turned his prows 
toward France. On the 1 6th of June, 1536, he furled his storm- 
rent sails once more beneath the ramparts of St. Malo. 

In the same spring, while Cartier was yet ice-bound undei 
Stadacona, the light of history flashes for a moment upon the 
coast of Newfoundland. Two ships were sent out from London 
to America on a fishing venture. After cruising about the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence they fell short of provisions, and entered a har- 
bour on the west shore of the island. Finding the natives too 

_ timorous to traffic with them they were soon in peril 

English ships ^ . ^ 

in the Gulf of of Starvation ; but from this strait they were relieved 
St. Lawrence. . 

by the timely arrival of a French trading-ship well 

laden with stores. Though France and England were then at 

peace, the French ship was promptly seized. It was a time and 

place not conducive to ceremony. The injured Frenchmen made 

complaint to the English King, our eighth Henry. That robust 

monarch decided that the piracy of his subjects was justified 



C ARTIER 'S LAST VOYAGE. 



15 



by the pressing nature of their needs ; but he repaid the unfortu- 
nate Frenchmen's losses out of his own pocket. 

7. Cartier's Last Voyage; and de Roberval. — For the next few 
years the French King, the inconstant Fran'cis, was too much 
occupied in defending his domains at home to think much of 
extending them abroad. His great rival, Charles V of Spain, 
was pressing him with fierce hostility. At length came peace ; 
and as Francis recovered breath and looked about him, his eyes 
were once more turned upon Canada, The Sieur de Roberval, 
a nobleman of Picardy, was made governor of Canada and all 
the surrounding regions ; and Cartier, under him, was appointed 
captain-general. Donnacona and his fellow-captives had died 
meanwhile ; and Cartier showed a natural reluctance to revisit 
the spot where he had so cruelly returned the kindness of his 
hosts. But at length he consented. With five ships, a great 
company of followers, and stock and implements for founding a 
colony, he left St. Malo on the 23rd of May, 1541. De Roberval 
stayed behind, intending to follow close upon his heels with 

additional ships and supplies. The voyage proved a 

^ ^ ^ / to 1- Cartier comes 

Stormy one. At Newfoundland, where de Roberval a third time 

to Canada, 
was to overtake him, Cartier fingered till his patience 

was outworn. Then, resuming his journey, he crossed the Gulf, 
and on the 23rd of August he came under the stern front of 
Stadacona's cape. In great numbers, but not with their old 
joyous welcome, the Indians crowded about him. Cartier con- 
fessed to them that Donnacona was dead, but he declared that 
the other chiefs had married in France, and were living in such 
splendour that they could not be persuaded to return. This tale 
the Indians pretended to believe ; but Cartier felt that they were 
merely covering up a fire of hate which would flame out at the 
first opportunity of revenge. . He forsook uneasily his old an- 
chorage in the St. Charles (then called the St. Croix), and 
moved further up the St. Lawrence to Cap Rouge. Here he 
watched in vain for de Roberval's expected sails. Sending back 
two of his ships with tidings to France, he established his colony 



1 6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

in a fortified post which he called Charlesbourg Royal. Here he 
passed an anxious, though not a disastrous winter. In the spring, 
discouraged apparently by de Roberval's continued absence and 
by the sullen enmity of the Indians, he gathered the colony back 
into his ships, bade an ungrateful farewell to the frowning height 
of Stadacona, and fled away for France. Entering 

He winters at ' -' ° 

Charlesbourg the harbour of St. John's, Newfoundland, in the early 

Royal, and . ^ ^ 

then gives up part of J une, he found there the belated de Rob- 

his enterprise. , ■ , , ■ r, , i ■ , , ■ 

erval with his fleet, a year behind his engagement. 
The fiery viceroy ordered his captain-general back to his post ; 
but Cartier slipped out of the harbour in the night and made his 
best haste homeward. In his native St. Malo, or in his neigh- 
bouring manor-house of Limoilou, Cartier settled down to a life 
of civil ease, content with the patent of nobility which his voy- 
ages had won for him. 

In no gentle humour de Roberval pressed on to Canada. He 
took possession of the deserted structures of Charlesbourg Royal, 
cleared fields, sowed crops, cut paths, raised new buildings. His 
company seems to have been an unruly one, but he governed with 
a rod of iron, and his harshness kept the peace. He seems, how- 
ever, to have lacked prudence and foresight ; and when winter 
came upon the lonely colony it was found that the store of pro- 
visions was not enough to last till spring. Every one was put on 

short allowance. Fish and roots, in meagre supply, 

De Roberval's ' *= fi Ji 

attempt at were purchased from the Indians. But the dread 

colonization. 

plague of the scurvy broke out, and there was no 
one to teach them Cartier's remedy. Fifty of the settlers died, 
and by spring de Roberval's enthusiasm was at an end. That 
summer he carried back to France the pitiful remnants of his 
colony. In 1549, with his brother Achille, he organized another 
expedition to Canada, the fate of which is one of the romantic 
secrets of history. A dim tradition would have us beUeve that 
the adventurers sailed up the Saguenay, seeking a kingdom 
of jewels and strange enchantments ; and that no man of the 
company ever returned through the bleak portals of that wiz- 



CARRIER'S LAST VOYAGE. 



17 



ard ^ stream. Another and more credible story tells us, however, 
that de RobervaP eventually returned to France, and died by vio- 
lence one night in the streets of Paris. 

It is interesting to consider that while Cartier. and de Roberval 
were thus exploring the St. Lawrence and piercing the continent 
by its eastern portals, the Spaniard de Soto was entering the 
southern gateway and threading the channels of the Mississippi. 

1 A tribe of Indians frequenting the head waters of the Saguenay goes by the 
name of the Wizards. See W. H. H. Murray's story of " Mamelons." 

2 The adventures of Roberval are vividly presented in a drama of that name 
by Hunter Duvar. 



CHAPTER II. 

SECTIONS : — 8, France forgets Canada for a time. The Eng-. 
LiSH IN Newfoundland. 9, the Expedition of de la Roche. 
10, Champlain and de Monts at St. Croix, ii, Champlain, 

POUTRINCOURT, AND LeSCARBOT AT PORT ROYAL. 12, BlEN- 

court, and the jesuits in acadie. 1 3, newfoundland. 
Henry Hudson. 

8. Canada forgotten by France. The English in Newfound- 
land. — For the half century succeeding Roberval's failure, Canada 
France's was forgotten by France, save that French fishermen 
engaged'at i^ ^^^^ growing numbers thronged to the Banks of 
home. Newfoundland. Torn by her religious wars, France 

could not afford to look beyond her own borders, and had no in- 
terest to spare for the New World. A French colony, indeed, was 
Massacre of established in Florida, 1562-65; but it was the fruit 
guenot colony of private enterprise, and being a colony of Huguenots, 
the^Span- ^^ ^^ territory claimed by Spain, it invited the most ma- 
lards. lignant hostiUty of the Spaniards. The butcher Me- 

nendez was sent out to remove it, which he did by hanging or 
cutting to pieces men, women, and children alike. This hideous 
atrocity was avenged by the patriot de Gourgues, who, 

geanceofde descending on the Spaniards like a whirlwind, capt- 
Gourgues. t> r » r 

ured the defences, and hanged the prisoners on the 
very scene of their crimes. De Gourgues accomplished his ven- 
geance in 1568. 

French enterprise was now completely diverted from this conti- 
nent. England, hitherto absorbed in adventurous voyagings, in 

18 



THE ENGLISH IN NEWFOUNDLAND. 19 

sailing around the globe or pushing into the Arctic ice, was begin- 
ning to meditate some serious attempts at colonization. In 1576 
Martin Frobisher set English feet on Labrador; Drake views 
but this was like the heedless ahghting of a bird of iaMe^the' 
passage, for Frobisher went on at once to seek a way Britfs*h co-°* 
to India. In the next year Sir Francis Drake, on his i^^i^ia. 
voyage around the world, sailed northward along the Pacific 
coast to the 48th parallel, and saw the snowy peaks of the moun- 
tains that keep watch over British Columbia. This is the first 
appearance in history of our Pacific Province. Six years later the 
English purpose of colonization began to show active life. This 
time the scene is Newfoundland, which justly claims the title of 
" England's Oldest Colony." An expedition was organized, in 
which Sir Walter Raleigh had large interest. Its leader was 
Raleigh's half-brother. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose g^j-g^j^ j^^ 

name sheds upon the page of Canadian history a fair Gilbert takes 
r r o J possession of 

light of bravery, faith, and gentleness. The expedition Newfound- 
was well equipped. It consisted of two hundred and 
sixty men, among whom were all such skilled mechanics as a 
colony should require. But Fortune had set her face against the 
enterprise. When but two days out a contagious disease began 
to spread in one of the ships, and she was compelled to turn back. 
The rest of the fleet, after a rough passage, entered the safe har- 
bour of St. John's. This was in August, of the year 1583. Sir 
Humphrey, in his rich Ehzabethan dress of lace and velvet, was 
a commanding figure among the rough fishermen and sailors, — 
French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, — whose ships thronged 
the port. After the feudal custom a branch and a sod were pre- 
sented to him, and he took possession in the name of his Queen, 
the great Elizabeth. He enacted many laws, and forced the for- 
eign trading-vessels to acknowledge his authority. His charter 
gave him no less than six hundred miles in every direction from 
St. John's ; and his territory therefore included New Brunswick, 
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and parts of Labrador and 
Quebec. Much energy was spent in exploring, and in searching 



20 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

for silver. But in one of these explorations Sir Humphrey's 
largest ship was lost. Provisions grew scarce ; and finding his 
people alarmed at the approach of winter, the gallant Admiral 
decided on returning to England. His flagship was the little 
Squirrel, of ten tons' burden, by far the smallest of the fleet. 
Death of Sir O^ the homeward voyage a great storm arose. Sir 
Humphrey. Humphrey refused to go on board a larger ship ; and 
in the loud darkness of the hurricane the Squirrel went down. 
It is a heroic picture that flashes upon us out of the terror of that 
far-off night. We see Sir Humphrey, his Bible in his lap, sitting 
unmoved in the stern of his puny and foundering vessel ; and we 
hear his words of comfort to his men — " Cheer up, lads, we are 
as near heaven at sea. as on land ! " 

9. The Expedition of de la Roche. — As the century closed, 
dreams of colonization again began to stir the hearts of advent- 
r> 1 r. 1, , urous Frenchmen. In 1598 the titles and privileges 
convict coio- of the ill-fated de Roberval were transferred to a 

nists. 

nobleman of Brittany, the Marquis de la Roche. He, 
unable to find enough volunteers for his purpose, made a selec- 
tion of sturdy convicts from the prisons of the land. Shunning the 
unlucky track of de Roberval, de la Roche steered much further 
to the south ; and at length the solitary little ship came in sight of 
the ominous, sandy horns of Sable Island. This long crescent 
of shifting sand, built up by meeting currents off the coast of Nova 
Scotia, and spreading its deadly shallows far abroad beneath the 
surf to devour unwary ships, seemed to de la Roche an excellent 
spot in which to cage his jail-birds while he went to explore the 
mainland. The convicts were put ashore, — if such bleak sand- 
spits could be called shore, — and de la Roche sailed away to find 
a site for his colony. For a little while the convicts were delighted 
„^ . ^ with their freedom. The interior of the island was 

The convicts 

abandoned on occupied by a long, narrow lasroon of sweet water, 

Sable Island. r .7 o' & > 

about whose low shores the grass and shrubs grew 
abundantly. There was nothing like a tree on the island ; there 
were no eminences except the hummocks of sand. But wild ducks 



THE EXPEDITION OF DE LA ROCHE. 21 

thronged the shallow pools ; wild cattle, sprung from de Lory's 
herds, trooped in the long grasses ; various kinds of wild berries 
were everywhere ripening to their lips; and- they forgot the 
scourge and chain. Meanwhile, however, a fierce storm had 
come down on de la Roche and swept him back to France; 
where, being cast upon the shores of Brittany, he was seized by 
a powerful foe, the Duke de Mercoeur, and consigned to prison. 
The convicts on the island, when they realized that they had 
been abandoned to their fate, cried out in despair for even the 
very jails of their own land. They fought and slew each other 
hke beasts, over the too scanty food ; till at last awe and fear 
drew the remnant together, when their refuge darkened under 
the autumn hurricanes, and shook horribly to the thunder of 
the waves. They lived on the raw flesh of the cattle, clothed 
their bodies in hides, and heaped themselves a rude shelter of 
timbers from the wrecks that strewed the shore. At length from 
his captivity de la Roche got word to the King, and a ship was 
sent out to rescue the unhappy convicts. Like wild creatures, 
in their shaggy hides and matted hair, they were brought before 
the King, who pitied them and granted them full pardon. De la 
Roche, broken in health and fortunes, died soon after their res- 
cue ; and thus was recorded another failure in the attempt to 
colonize Canada. 

While de la Roche was languishing behind the Duke de Mer- 
coeur 's walls, while the convicts grovelled and despaired on Sable 
Island, an effort was made to fix a settlement in the chauvinand 
St. Lawrence valley. A naval officer of Rouen, by ^o°iony^at^'^ 
the name of Chauvin, entered into partnership with Tadousac. 
an enterprising trader of St. Malo, named Pontgrave ; and the 
partners procured a monopoly of the fur-trade of the St. Lawrence 
region on the condition of establishing a colony. In the fur-trade 
they succeeded bravely enough ; but their colonizing zeal expended 
itself in leaving sixteen men, ill housed, ill clothed, ill victualled, to 
endure the assaults of a Saguenay winter at wind-swept Tadousac. 
This was in 1599. On the arrival of the trading-ship from France 



22 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

in the following spring, it was found that of the sixteen unhappy set- 
tlers most had died, and the rest were scattered among the wigwams 
of the Indians. The Tadousac experiment was not repeated, but 
the fur-trade was continued with great profit. In the following 
year Chauvin made a third voyage, and died in Canada. His 
enterprise at once fell to pieces. The name of Pontgrav^, how- 
ever, reappears later in our story, shining with" reflected lustre by 
association with the immortal name of Champlain. 

10. Champlain and de Monts at St. Croix. — No name is borne 
upon the annals of Canadian history more worthy of reverence 
Samuel de than that of Champlain. Samuel de Champlain, born 
Champlain. ^^ Brouage in 1567, was a captain in the French navy 
and high in the favour of that manly monarch, Henry IV of 
France. Champlain's was a restless and romantic spirit, intrepid^ 
devout, humane. He was imaginative in conceiving his plans, 
practical in carrying them out. On a secret mission, discreetly 
executed, he had explored a part of Mexico and visited the Span- 
ish settlements in the West Indies. 

When, on the threshold of the new century, the veteran Aymar 
de Chastes, governor of Dieppe, resolved to take up the somewhat 
He visits the discredited mantles of de Roberval and de la Roche, 
St. Lawrence, ^j^^^ ^.^ colonize for King and Church the reluctant 
wilderness of Canada, he saw in Champlain the man his work re- 
quired. His first step was to send Champlain on an exploring 
expedition to the St. Lawrence. In the track of the great St. 
Malo mariner Champlain pressed forward, till he reached the site 
of Hochelaga — and found the site a soUtude. Savage wars had 
blotted out the corn-fields and the hospitable lodges. Returning 
to France with his information, he found that his patron, de 
Chastes, had died in his absence. 

Champlain had been accompanied on this journey by Pontgravd. 
But he had had, also, a more important comrade, an adventure- 
loving nobleman of the court, Pierre du Guast, the Sieur de Monts. 
The latter resolved to continue the work which had dropped from 
the dead hand of de Chastes. Dreading, however, the harsh win- 



CHAMPLAIN AND DE MONTS AT ST. CROIX. 23 

ters of the lower St. Lawrence, de Monts turned his eyes further 

south. And now the name of Acadie appears upon our page. In 

the patent of de Monts the Acadian land is a huge ter- He sets out 

ritory of very cloudy limits, wide enough to take in witt^de^^ 

Philadelphia on the one hand and Montreal on the ^o^^^^- 

other. With two ships, and a company of mingled thieves and 

gentlemen, de Monts went forth in 1604 to colonize this Acadie. 

Along with him sailed Champlain and the Baron de Poutrincourt ;; 

and two other ships accompanied the expedition, — the one tO' 

trade in furs at Tadousac, the other to drive off poachers from the 

new viceroy's fishing-grounds. 

Fair winds followed the sails of de Monts. The voyage was 

preserved from monotony by the frequent bickerings between his 

Catholic and his Calvinist followers. The first land 

, He skirts the 

sighted was Cape La Heve, not far from the present Acadian 

town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Sailing westward, 
de Monts entered a fair and spacious harbour, which he named 
Port Rossignol. The name was given in honour of the captain 
of a vessel which he found trading in the harbour and promptly 
confiscated for violation of his charter. In another harbour a 
sheep jumped overboard ; and as sheep were rare and precious 
just then in Acadie, de Monts commemorated the event by call- 
ing the place Port Mouton. De Monts seems to have had a 
vein of humour. His taste in names certainly differed from that 
of Champlain, whose nomenclature was wholly derived from a 
few favoured saints and the members of his own family. From 
Port Mouton the voyagers sailed to St. Mary's Bay, whose coasts 
they explored ; and then, rounding a long, narrow promontory, 
they floated on the tossing tides of the Bay of Fundy. Pres- 
ently they discerned on their right a majestic defile between fir- 
crowned steeps of rock ; and sailing in swiftly on the crest of the 
flood tide, they found themselves on the lovely expanse of what is 
now called Annapolis Basin. A wide water steeped in sunshine, 
fenced from fogs and winds by a deep rim of wooded hills, it was 
a scene of enchantment to the wanderers. The delighted Pou- 



24 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

trincourt, asking and receiving from de Monts a grant of the sur- 
rounding shores, named the place Port Royal and resolved to 
make his home there. 

From Port Royal the explorers sailed around the Bay of 
Fundy, and entered, on its northern shore, the mouth of a great 
The St. John river called by the Indians the Oolastook. In honour 
Croix^dif-*' ^^ ^^^ saint On whose day it was discovered, Cham- 
covered, plain renamed it the St. John. Thence still westward 
coasting, they entered a spacious bay set thick with islands as with 
innumerable jewels. At the head of this green and restless archi- 
pelago, to which has clung its Indian name of Passamaquoddy, 
emptied a large river with an island guarding its mouth. This 
island they named St. Croix ; and here, strange to say, over- 
looking the bleakness of the site, they resolved to fix their set- 
tlement. 

St. Croix Island became a scene of busy life. The ragged 

cedars which clothed it were quickly chopped away, leaving but 

a fringe of them to fence off the north-east winds. 
Settlement ° 

on St. Croix Buildings were erected about an open square, — store- 

Isla.nd. 

houses, work-shops, lodgings, barracks, with separate 
dwellings for de Monts and for Champlain. For defence the 
whole was surrounded with palisades, and a small battery was 
mounted at one end. On the niggardly soil of the island Cham- 
plain strove, but in vain, to make a garden. As soon as the 
colony was under roof, Poutrincourt sailed back to France, and 
the lonely little settlement was left to face the winter. Soon the 
crimson and gold of autumn died out on the surrounding shores, 
and the cheer of the sunshine paled. Storms shrieked down the 
frozen river, piercing the walls of their hasty shelters and chilling 
their hearts beneath their too scant garments. The whirling snow- 
drift Winded them ; the ominous grinding of the ice before the 
changing tides filled them with gloom. Being on an island where 
river and tide contended daily for the mastery, they were often 
cut off from the supplies of fuel and water which only the main- 
land could afford. And then, when they we^e enfeebled by de- 



DE MONTS RETURNS TO FRANCE. 25 

pression, the scurvy broke out. The old, heart-rending scenes 
of Stadacona and Charlesbourg Royal were reenacted. Out of 
the seventy-nine colonists but forty-four survived to greet the 
spring, — and these survivors were often too weak for the sad 
task of serving the dying and burying the dead. Only Cham- 
plain's indomitable courage kept alive the spark of hope in un- 
happy St. Croix. 

Late in the spring came Poutrincourt's ship from France, and 
the long anguish was at an end. During the summer Champlain 
and de Monts explored the coast as far south as Cape 

'^ ^ Colony 

Cod, but found no site for their settlement as favour- removed to 

Port Royal, 
able as Port Royal. In August, therefore, the shrunken 

colony fled over the bay to that kindlier and more sheltered haven. 
They took with them the greater part of the materials of their 
buildings. When they were gone the Indians soon completed 
the work of demolition. There remains upon the island no re- 
minder of their story, except the ruins of a well which may have 
been Champlain's. 

II. Champlain, Lescarbot, and Poutrincourt at Port Royal. — 
The colony at Port Royal was soon fairly housed ; but de Monts 

had enemies at court, and to thwart their intrigues he 

' ° . De Monts 

hastened back to France with Poutrincourt, leaving returns to 

° France. 

Pontgrav^ and Champlain to guide the settlement 
through the perils of another winter. Thanks partly to the friend- 
ship and support of Membertou, the old sagamore of the Mic- 
macs, partly to the wiser foresight of its leaders and the better 
shelter of its situation, the colony underwent no such terrible 
experience as had befallen it at St. Croix. 

In the spring the colonists grew anxious over the delay of 
de Monts and Poutrincourt. As summer wore on, and supplies 
dwindled, and no sails appeared from France, they built them- 
selves two little craft, — the pioneers, these, of Nova The arrival of 
Scotia ship-building, if we except the dragon-ship built ^^^carbot. 
by Thorwald on Keelness. Leaving Port Royal in charge of two 
of their number, they set out for the fishing resorts on the east 



26 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

coast, hoping to meet and get aid from some of their fellow- 
countrymen. They had been gone but twelve days, however, 
when Poutrincourt arrived, bringing supplies and more colonists. 
De Monts, finding his enemies in the ascendant, had remained in 
France ; but he more than compensated for his absence by send- 
ing out the wise and witty Lescarbot. This lawyer of Paris, with 
his scholarship, his shrewdness, his merry humour, and his cour- 
age, is one of the pleasantest figures on the page of Canadian 
history. He became not only the hfe of the settlement, but also 
its best historian. 

A boat sent out by Poutrincourt overtook the little ships of 
the party that had gone for aid ; and lively were the rejoicings 
at Port Royal. Pontgrav6 presently returned to France, while 
champiain Champlain and Poutrincourt set forth on a voyage of 
courfgo^ex"-" exploration. Lescarbot, left in charge of the settle- 
pionng. ment, sowed crops of wheat, rye, and barley in the 

rich meadows bordering the tide. He planted gardens, too, and 
kept the settlers happily employed. In November the explorers 
returned to Port Royal, with nothing but disappointment to show 
for their summer's effort ; but Lescarbot welcomed them back 
with a gay masquerade, and the scene of prosperity and comfort 
revived their cheer. 

The winter that followed (that of 1606-160 7) was warm and 
open, so that in January the colonists amused themselves with 
The Order of boating on the river, and with picnicking on their 
a Good Time, ^heat-fields in the sun. This was the memorable win- 
ter when Champlain's "Order of a Good Time" held its benefi- 
cent sway. The members of the order were the fifteen leading 
men of the colony ; its temple was Poutrincourt's dark-ceilinged 
dining-hall; its rule was good-fellowship and mirth. Each mem- 
ber was adorned in turn with the elaborate collar of Grand Mas- 
ter, which he wore for one day. During that day it was his duty 
to cater for the table ; and so well was the duty performed, says 
Lescarbot, that the order dined much more cheaply and not less 
sumptuously than they might have done in the restaurants of 



PORT ROYAL ABANDONED. 2/ 

Paris. Supplies from France were abundant ; and witli the help 
of the Indians, who camped in the shadow of the walls, appe- 
tizing additions of fish and game were made to their bill of fare. 
The dinner, a feast of much ceremony, held at midday, was ruled 
by the Grand Master, with napkin on shoulder and staff of office 
in hand. As guest of honour at the table sat the Sagamore Mem- 
bertou, deep-wrinkled with -his hundred years, but still a warrior. 
On the floor around sat other Indian guests, with squaws and 
children, waiting for biscuits, and watching the great log fire roar 
up the capacious chimney. 

Thus well fed, well housed, well cheered, they passed the winter 
in health. In the spring a water-mill was built, fishing and farm- 
ing were followed up with zeal, and the success of the venture 
seemed assured. But suddenly came disaster, like a port Royal 
bolt from a clear sky. A ship from St. Malo arrived abandoned. 
with word that de Monts's enemies had triumphed over him, and 
had got the King to take away his charter. Thus deprived of 
their support, there was nothing for the colonists to do but give 
up Port Royal. With deep discouragement, and amid the bitter 
lamentations of the Indians, they sailed for France. But Poutrin- 
court, as he forsook the lovely haven framed in its hills, resolved 
that he would return at a later day with his whole household, and 
strike deep into Acadian soil the roots of his home. 

12. The Jesuits and Biencourt in Acadie. — De Monts now 
lost interest in Acadie, and set himself to the quest of the north- 
west passage. Champlain went north to found Quebec and to 
write his name in characters of heroic achievement De Monts re- 
all over the St. Lawrence valley. Thither we shall to^pouto'^-'® 
presently follow him. But Poutrincourt remained ''°'^''*- 
faithful to Port Royal. In 1610 he set out once more for the 
place of his desire. This time he took with him a zealous priest, 
Father La Fleche. Membertou and all his tribe were speedily 
converted. So ardent a proselyte was the old sagamore that he 
was for instant war against all the tribes who had not a ready ear 
for the good priest's teachings. In the following year (161 1) 



28 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Poutrincourt's eighteen-year-old son, best known to our history 
as Biencourt, set sail for France with the official list of baptisms 
in proof of his father's zeal for the conversion of the heathen. 
When he reached France he found calamity. The strong King, 
Henry IV, had died under the knife of the assassin Ravaillac ; 
and the government was in the hands of the corrupt Queen, Marie 
de Medicis. It was a dark hour for the lovers of France, whether 
Catholic or Huguenot. 

But when patriotism flagged, religious zeal was to take up the 
work in Acadie. Now appeared on the scene the mysterious, 

black-robed, indomitable figures of the Jesuits, des- 
Thejesuits. . , ' , , a- j tvt -c 

tmed to leave so deep a mark on Canada. Magnifi- 
cent in peril, meddlesome in peace, oft dreaded by their friends, 
but extorting the admiration of their enemies, their record in the 
counsels of Old Canada is one of ceaseless quarrels with the 
civil power; but their record among the savages is one of im- 
perishable glory. Their faith was a white and living flame, that 
purged out all thought of self. Alone, fearless, not to be turned 
aside, they pierced to the inmost recesses of the wilderness. 
They thrust themselves upon the savages, they endured filth and 
ignominy, they shrank not from the anguish of torture, they rejoiced 
in the crudest forms of death, if thereby they might hope to save 
a soul. Whatever blame may rightly or wrongly attach to the 
institution of the Jesuits, it has shown itself able to breed saints 
and heroes. 

When young Biencourt sailed back to Port Royal with succour, 
the Jesuits, represented by Father Biard and Father Enemond 
Masse, went with him as partners in the enterprise. The Queen 
and many ladies of the court had opened their purses to help on 
the pious work. But the chieY patron of the undertaking was 
Madame de Guercheville, a lady-in-waiting famed no less for her 
Madame de virtue than for her beauty. She bought out all the 
Guercheville. ii^tgrests in the venture that were held by the Hugue- 
not merchants of St. Malo ; and she transferred these interests 
to the Jesuits. Difficulties soon arose in Port Royal between 



JESUIT SETTLEMENT AT MOUNT DESERT. 29 

the priests and Poutrincourt, who is said to have cried to them 
once in exasperation, " Show me my path to Heaven. I will show 
you yours on earth." Presently he returned to strife at Port 
France, leaving Biencourt in charge. This sagacious ^°y^^- 
and energetic youth, who had been made vice-admiral in the 
waters of New France, spent the summer in enforcing his authority 
and taking tribute from the ships that traded on his coast. Father 
Biard toiled earnestly to learn the speech of the Indians. He 
lived much of the summer in their huts, striving to win their sym- 
pathies and understand their hearts. The winter was one of de- 
pression, intensified by the death of Membertou. Toward the 
end of January came a ship from Poutrincourt. Besides supplies, 
which by this time were sorely needed, it brought a lay-brother of 
the Jesuit order, sent out as Madame de Guercheville's agent. 
The power of the Jesuits had mightily expanded since Biencourt's 
departure from France, for Madame de Guercheville had obtained 
from Louis XHI a grant of nothing less than the whole territory 
of North America, from Florida to the St. Lawrence. The Dutch 
trading-post on the Hudson with the little English settlements 
at Jamestown in Virginia and at Pemaquid in Maine (begun in 
1607) were coolly included in this grant, — a fact of which 
they rested in happy ignorance. The only spot not embraced in 
Madame de Guercheville's grant was Poutrincourt's little domain 
at Port Royal, secured to him by the charter of Henry IV. A 
fierce quarrel broke out at once between Biencourt and the 
Jesuits, in which the victory rested with the young vice-admiral. 
After three months, however, a reconciliation was effected ; and 
Father Biard wrote home to France a letter filled with Biencourt's 
praises. 

In March of the following spring (1613) the Jesuits sent out 
a new expedition under a courtier named Saussaye. The ships 
touched at La Heve, and erected there a cross bear- The Jesuit 
ing the scutcheon of Madame de Guercheville. Stop- at MoSft"^* 
ping at Port Royal to take up Biard and Masse, they ^^^^'■*- 
continued down the Atlantic coast till they reached Mount De- 



30 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

sert. Here they set themselves, amid much bickering, to plant 
a new colony under the name of St. Sauveur. 

But the colony was not destined to take root. The bolt which 
was to destroy it was already speeding to its mark. The event 
which shattered Madame de Guercheville's enterprise was in 
itself but the lawless raid of a freebooter ; but it is, never- 
theless, an event of historic magnitude, because it marks the 
beginning of the struggle between France and England for the 
possession of the continent. It chanced that one Samuel Argall, 
from the English colony in Virginia, was cruising off the Maine 
coast with a well-armed ship. When he heard of the arrival of 
the French his wrath was greatly kindled. Such an infringement 
on the rights of his sovereign King James, who claimed even 
more of the continent than did Madame de Guercheville, was 
not to be endured. He swept down on St. Sauveur, 

Its destruc- . ' 

tion by seized the stores, turned some of the Frenchmen 

Argall. 

adrift in an open boat, and carried off all the rest, 
Biard among them, to a mild captivity in Virginia. The unfortu- 
nates whom Argall turned adrift would surely have perished but 
for the aid of some commiserating Indians. They worked their 
way northward slowly along the coast till at last they met a trad- 
ing-vessel and were carried back to France. From their com- 
rades who were taken to Virginia (from Biard himself, men say), 
the governor of Jamestown heard of the Port Royal settlement. 
Just as France claimed all North America by virtue of Verraz- 
zano's discoveries, England claimed the same territory by virtue 
of the prior discoveries of Cabot. Port Royal and Virginia, each 
was in the other's eyes a trespasser. Argall, therefore, was sent 
northward to eject the French intruders. He found Port Royal 
defenceless. Biencourt and his men were either away among 
the Indians, or at work in the fields up river. The buildings 

were pillaged and burned, and even the standing 

Argall de- f b » o 

stroys Port crops were barbarously trodden down. After this 
Royal. ' ■' 

exploit Argall returned to Virginia to win fame by 

his daring and wealth by his knavery, becoming in the end Sir 



ENGLISH COLONIZATION. 3 1 

Samuel Argall ; and the unhappy colonists at Port Royal were 
left to support themselves through the winter on wild roots and 
the hospitality of starving Indians. The brave but unlucky Poa- 
trincourt soon afterwards died a soldier's death in the assault on 
M^ry, a small town in his native France. But his indomitable 
son, the young vice-admiral, clung to his Acadian domain, where 
he hunted, fished, traded, and eventually in part rebuilt Port 
Royal. Among his companions in this adventurous life was a 
Huguenot gentleman, Charles de la Tour, destined to play a not- 
able part in our story. 

13. English Colonization. Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. — 
During the period just described the English were gaining firm 

foothold in Virginia : ^ but for more than a quarter 

° ^ . ^ TheConcep- 

of a century after the failure of Sir Humphrey Gil- tion bay 

colony. 

bert's expedition their eyes were turned away from 
the stormier north. Their fishermen flocked to the cod-waters 
of Newfoundland, but not more diligently than the fishermen of 
France, Spain, and Portugal, over whom they domineered in the 
harbours and on the curing-grounds. In 16 10, however, the 
"Company of London and Bristol Adventurers and Planters" 
was organized, with the illustrious Bacon on its roll of member- 
ship. This company undertook to plant a settlement at Concep- 
tion Ba}^, in Newfoundland. One John Guy was at the head of 
the enterprise, which, though promising much and performing 
little, nevertheless was not utterly a failure. Guy and most of 
his followers went home, but a handful remained and became 
a fixed nucleus for the flourishing fisheries. 

Then began the rule of the " Fishing Admirals," who, under 
commission from the Admiralty, governed the island from their 
vessels' decks in a rough-and-ready fashion, and The fishing 
wielded sharp sway over the turbulent spirits who ^^"'""^^s. 



1 Raleigh's attempted colony on Roanoke Island, Virginia, was begun in 1585. 
It failed utterly. The first permanent English settlement in America was that of 
the Virginia Company, in which Captain John Smith was the ruling spirit and 
Pocahontas the romantic figure. 



32 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

frequented those turbulent seas. The most noteworthy of the 
fishing admirals was Captain Richard Whitbourne, sailor, fighter, 
and writer, with a record for heroism in the wars against Spain. 
For forty years, off and on, he traded to the Newfoundland 
coast ; and on his retirement he wrote a book in praise of the 
island he loved. This work, " A Discourse and Discovery of 
Newfoundland," stirred up a warm interest in Great Britain, and 
was distributed throughout the kingdom by the order of King 
James. 

In 1623 the settlement of Newfoundland was undertaken by 
Lord Baltimore, on a larger scale and with finer foresight than 
Lord Baiti- before. He settled on the southern peninsula, which 
ment'ir"^^' he named Avalon, spent a great sum of money on the 
Avaion. venture, built himself a stately house at his village of 

Verulam, and dwelt there with his family, a true settler, for many 
years. At length, discouraged by the harsh soil of that district 
and by the frequent attacks of the French, Lord Baltimore for- 
sook the island. But his influence lingered behind him in the 
shape of an increased population ; and his village of Verulam, 
surviving through many vicissitudes, remains to us to-day under 
the corrupted name of Ferryland. 

To the time when the " London and Bristol adventurers " were 
trying to colonize Newfoundland belong the exploits of Henry 
Henry Hud- Hudson. This brave and ill-fated navigator in 1610 
®°°' ascended the great river which bears his name. He 

was then in the employ of the Dutch, who, stirred up by his 
reports, began presently to occupy, by trade and settlement, the 
region which was later to be called New York. The Dutchmen 
called it all New Netherlands. Reentering the service of Eng- 
land, Hudson pushed northward with one ship, whose picturesque 
name, the Half-Moo7i, lingers in one's fancy. At length he 
found his way through a stormy strait into a vast semi-arctic 
inland sea. In the rock-bound desolation of these waters he 
wintered, hoping in the opening up of spring to find a westward 
passage. But his crew, terrified out of their manhood by the 



HENRY HUDSON. 33 

cold and solitude, rose up in mutiny. With the baseness of 
cowards they turned their commander adrift in an open boat 
upon those pitiless waters. His son, and two of his faithful 
comrades, shared his fate. On their return to England the 
mutineers were seized and punished for their crime ; and as 
soon as possible three ships were sent out to the rescue. But 
their errand proved fruitless. Hudson had found a grave in the 
great waters which he had discovered and whose name perpet- 
uates his fame. ' 



CHAPTER III. 

SECTIONS: — 14, Champlain at Quebec. 15, Champlain ex- 
plores THE Ottawa. 16, the Expedition to the Huron 
Country. 17, the Lordship of Canada passes from Hand 
TO Hand. 18, First Capture of Quebec by the English. 
Champlain's Last Days. 

14. Champlain at Quebec. — We must now go back a few years, 
in order to follow the fortunes of Champlain. As we have seen, 
The founding he had left Port Royal to Poutrincourt. In 1608 a 
of Quebec. ^^^ settlement was planned on the St. Lawrence, 
under the patronage of the much harassed de Monts, who had 
so far triumphed over his enemies as to secure a renewal of his 
charter. It was now proposed to make the profits of the fur- 
trade pay the expenses of colonization ; and along with Cham- 
plain, the explorer and colonizer, went Pontgrav^, the experienced 
trader. Stadacona had vanished ; but at the foot of the towering 
rock whereon it had stood Champlain laid the foundations of 
Quebec. These consisted of a few rude buildings in the form 
of an open square. In the middle of the square rose a dove-cote 
on the top of a pole, fitly symbolizing Champlain's peaceful pur- 
pose. A wooden wall and a ditch, with bastions and guns, sur- 
rounded the group of dwellings. Hardly was the work of building 
done when a dangerous conspiracy was discovered. Champlain 
was to be murdered ; and the infant colony was to be handed 
over to the unlicensed fur-traders, who hated his restrictions on 
their traffic. The plot he handled with rude vigour. The chief 
conspirator was hung ; four of his fellows, sent in chains to France, 

34 



CHAMPLAIN'S INDIAN POLICY AT QUEBEC. 35 

were condemned to the galleys ; and the rest learned a wholesome 

lesson. 

During the winter Champlain met some Indians from the 

Ottawa country, who implored " the man with the iron breast," as 

they called him, to help them against the dreaded 

•^ > r- o Champlain 

Iroquois. Eager to explore the country, and anxious takes up the 

^ ^ ^ . . quarrel of the 

to Strengthen his influence with his wild allies, Cham- Aigonquins 

. and Hurons 

plain lent a ready ear to their request. It is common against the 

1 , . • , • 1 , 1 ■ -1 Iroquois. 

to condemn his course in this, and to charge him with 
all the bloodshed which Iroquois hate was afterwards to inflict 
upon New France. But we must bear in mind that the devas- 
tated sites of Stadacona and Hochelaga bore eloquent witness to 
the feud, long-standing and implacable, which divided the Iro- 
quois on the one side from the Aigonquins and their kindred on 
the other. The Hurons, indeed, who occupied Hochelaga, were 
related to the Iroquois ; but the destiny of the wilderness had 
linked their interests and their fate with the Aigonquins. As the 
French dwelt among these latter as- friends, they would sooner or 
later have found themselves within the eye of Iroquois vengeance. 
Had they tried to remain neutral, their neutrality would never 
have turned aside the Mohawk hatchets. It would have forfeited 
the trust of their friends without conciliating their inevitable foes. 
But the policy adopted by Champlain was one which required a 
strong hand to carry it out. If the strong hand had not so often 
in later days been lacking, what blood and tears New France 
might have been spared ! 

The Iroquois country lay southwestward from Quebec, in what 
is now northern New York; but the circle of their influence was 
far wider than their own domain, while the terror of He chastises 
their name touched savage hearts from the prairies t^^^'^oi'^ois. 
of the Mississippi to the fringes of the arctic barrens. In the 
spring of 1609 Champlain took a handful of his Frenchmen, and 
accompanied a band of Hurons and Aigonquins up the Richelieu.^ 

1 Then known as the river of the Iroquois, it being their highway to the north. 



36 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

He traversed the richly islanded lake which now bears his name, 
and fell suddenly upon a war-party of the Mohawks. The Mohawks 
numbered about 200, while in Champlain's band there were but 60. 
The scorn of the Iroquois for their oft-conquered foes dissolved in 
terror before a volley from the Frenchmen's muskets. Then this 
haughty people tasted the ignominy of a panic which long after- 
wards rankled in their breasts. Their town was blotted out ; and 
the elated victors hastily fell back across the St. Lawrence. 

15. Champlain explores the Ottawa. — In explorations, in 
attacks upon the Iroquois, and in the ceaseless struggle to protect 
his colony against the encroachments of the fur- 
hears the traders, Champlain found the next three years well 

story of the • » i j ■ 

impostor occupied. The control of the colonial purse-strings 

rested in France ; and as this control passed rapidly 
from one distinguished hand to another, Champlain was often 
called home. During one of these visits he took to himself a wife, 
— whose name survives in " Helen's Island," in the St. Lawrence 
opposite Montreal. In 161 3 Champlain's fancy was inflamed by 
the ingenious lies of a certain Nicolas Vignan, who had spent a 
winter among the tribes of the upper Ottawa. Vignan narrated to 
admiring ears a tale of how he had traced the Ottawa to its source 
in a great lake, had discovered another river flowing northward 
from the lake, and had come out at length upon an unknown sea. 
" Surely," cried the willing believers, " the passage to Cathay is 
discovered ! " and great renown for a Httle while was Vignan's. 

With Vignan and three followers, in two canoes of birch bark, 
Champlain set forth to verify the tale. He paddled out of the 
clear water of the St. Lawrence into the dark current 
witif Vignan of the Ottawa, deep-dyed with the juices of its fir 
pafsage'to ^"^^ hemlock forests. The voyagers carried their 
dfs«)ters^°^ canoes around the fierce rapids that barred their way. 
beendupe^d. They Stared with awe into the thundering caldron of 
Chaudiere, where now the saw-mills of Ottawa shriek 
and hiss. This strange cataract was regarded with awe by the' 
Indians, who would cast into the gulf tobacco or other offerings 



CHAM PLAIN EXPLORES THE OTTAWA. 37 

to appease the angry manitou of the waters. At last, coming to 
AUumette Island, they were welcomed by a tribe of friendly Al- 
gonquins ; and there the impostor Vignan was convicted of his 
lie.^ Champlain was for a time overwhelmed by the shock of 
his rage and chagrin ; but with the generosity of a great soul he 
finally let the liar go unpunished, and returned to Quebec with 
his bitter disappointment. While Champlain was thus cutting his 
trail into the very heart of the continent, and resting fearlessly in 
the red men's wigwams, England had but a few settlers clinging 
to the Virginia coast, with the tomahawk and scalping- knife await- 
ing them if they stirred beyond the shadow of their walls. 

Hitherto the Quebec settlement had done nothing for the 
spread of the faith ; but now Champlain brought out to Canada 
four priests of the Order of the R^collets, devout men pledged 
to poverty and inured to self-denial (i6iO- To 

^ ■' . 1 , . r TheRecoUets 

them was committed the conversion of the savages, come to 

Canada. 

and the spiritual care of the colony. Their record, 
though less brilHant than that of the Jesuits, shows great work 
quietly done. They were the first of Europeans to pierce the 
wilderness lying between the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy. 
Within five years of their coming we find their sandalled feet on 
the Nepisiquit and on the St. John, at Cape Sable and at Port 
Royal. When Champlain made his expedition to the Huron 
country, the Recollet Father le Caron went ahead of him in his 
zeal, and was thus the first to carry the cross to the tribes of the 
Great Lakes. 

16. The Expedition to the Huron Country. — Champlain's path 
into the Huron country was somewhat roundabout. With a hand- 
ful of followers, among them the bold pioneer, Etienne champlain 
Brul6, he ascended the Ottawa, crossed over to Lake lu^ron coun- 
Nipissing, followed the course of French River to ^^^ 
Georgian Bay, coasted along the rugged and myriad-islanded 
shores to Matchedash Bay, and reached at last a fruitful, rolling 

1 It is conceivable that Vignan may have heard of the route to James Bay, by 
port;ige over the height of land and paddle down the Moose River. This would 
serve as a basis for his inventions. 



38 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

country. A broad trail led him to the several Huron towns, 
and finally to the Huron metropolis, Carhagouha, with its swarm 
of long lodges and its lofty palisades. Here Father le Caron 
awaited him ; and here, on the 12th of August, was held a glad 
service of thanksgiving. The mission to the Hurons was begun. 
The travellers were enchanted with the land which they had 
reached through so many obstacles. The fields were gay with 
the harvest of sun-flowers, maize, and pumpkins ; the thickets 
were prodigal with fruits and nuts ; the air was filled with grateful 
warmth and had a tonic vigour. 

Champlain was pledged to aid his allies in an invasion of the 
Iroquois land. In September the war-party set out from Car- 
The Iroquois hagouha. By way of the channel of the Trent they 
land invaded. (jegcej^(jg(j ^q Lake Ontario, which they crossed not 
far from its outlet. Hiding their canoes, they filed noiselessly 
through the deep woods, aglow with the splendours of autumn. 
At length they saw before them a well- fenced town of the Onon- 
dagas. In spite of Champlain's angry protests the rabble of 
young braves rushed yelling to the attack, only to be beaten back 
with loss. Much crestfallen, they returned to Champlain. The 
town was defended by a fourfold palisade, with brimming gutters 
along the top to quench the firebrands of the enemy. Champlain 
taught his allies to build a movable covered tower from which he 
and his musketeers might shoot over the wall ; and he taught 
them also to protect themselves from the Iroquois arrows by 
mantelets, — wide shields of wicker-work and skins. On the fol- 
lowing day the tower was pushed in place and the attack began. 
The French muskets wrought havoc within the walls ; but the 
hordes of ungovernable savages, casting Champlain's teaching to 
the winds, flung away their mantelets and shot their arrows wildly 
in the open. Amid the hideous yelling of the warriors Cham- 
plain could not make himself heard. He was wounded in the 
thigh and in the knee. The Hurons, swarming in boldly under a 
shower of missiles, succeeded in setting fire to the pahsades, but 
a flood from the gutters above extinguished it. At length, after 



EXPEDITION TO THE HURON COUNTRY. 



39 



three hours of great noise and little accomplishment, they drew 
off quite disheartened. They decided to wait for the arrival of 
five hundred Eries, who had promised to aid them in 

Repulse and 

their enterprise. But after five days of vain waiting retreat of the 

Hurons. 

they grew tired ; and all at once they stole off like 
shadows, carrying with them in a pannier the wounded and humil- 
iated Champlain. They had lost faith in their " man with the iron 
breast." Reaching the shores of the great lake, they found their 
canoes untouched, and made undignified haste to cross to their 
own shore. 

The Hurons had sworn solemnly to Champlain that after the 
attack on the Iroquois they would carry him down the St. Lawrence 
to Mount Royal ; but now they shamelessly broke faith with him. 
Their excuses were numerous. The lateness of the season, the 
approach of the autumn hunting, and above all the champlain 
awakened watchfulness of the Iroquois, who ranged ^oifg^he 
the southern shore, — all these served well enough, ^^"^"^is. 
Champlain was compelled to go back with them and winter among 
the Huron lodges, where he was hospitably cared for by a chief 
named Durantal. With Father le Caron he visited the alhed 
tribes further west, and thus occupied his restless spirit. In the 
spring, after patching up a quarrel which had arisen between the 
Hurons and Algonquins (a tribe of whom, from the upper 
Ottawa, had camped by the pahsades of Carhagouha), he re- 
traced his steps by Georgian Bay and the Ottawa to Quebec, 
where he was welcomed as one risen from the dead. 

17. The Lordship of Canada passes from Hand to Hand. — The 
purse-strings of Canada were now controlled by the Associated 
Merchants of St. Malo and Rouen, under the patronage of the 
Prince de Cond^. This nobleman cared for his Canadian power 
and privilege so far only as they could be made to xhe mer- 
serve his pocket. The Associated Merchants grew ?ne\';)^cham- 
eager to remove Champlain from his command. The P^^^"^- 
good traders found him very troublesome. Their only desire 
was to trade ; but Champlain would not suffer them to forget 



40 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

that they were pledged to estabUsh a colony and christianize the 
savages. They harassed him with their intrigues, even as he 
harassed them with his untiring reminders of their duty. In 
1 617 a certain apothecary named Louis Hebert, who had been 
with the dauntless Biencourt at Port Royal, took his wife and 
two children to Quebec, and won for his family the memorable 
distinction of being the pioneer household of Canada. Two 
years later Champlain got a body of eighty colonists sent out 
from France. In 1620 he brought his own family to Quebec, 
where his wife, a woman of beauty and enthusiasm, threw her- 
self ardently into the task of converting the women and children 
of the savages. 

Quebec was just now at a rather low ebb morally, thanks to 
the greed and recklessness of the fur-traders, who corrupted the 
Abuses of the savages body and soul with brandy. The savages 
fur-trade. appeared to have an inborn craving for alcohol ; and 
once having tasted it they would barter the most costly skins for 
a few mouthfuls of the delirious fluid. Against such iniquities 
Champlain set his face like flint ; and fiercely did the fur-traders 
hate him when they found him in the path cf their evil traffic. 

In a short time the Associated Merchants lost their privileges 
for failure to fulfil their pledges. Their monopoly was handed 
Quarrels Over to Guillaume and Emery de Caen, two Huguenot 

Cathohcand gentlemen, on condition that they should settle none 
Huguenot. -^^^ Roman Catholics in the colony. The peace of 
the little settlement was not promoted by this change, and noisy 
were the disputes between Catholic settler and Huguenot sailor, 
as well as between the old and new monopohsts. Champlain had 
need of all his vigour and all his fortitude. He was sorely tempted 
at times to throw up his high ambitions, and leave his rapacious 
charges to prey upon the savages and each other. 

To his perplexities was presently added a new peril. A band 
of Iroquois crept down upon Quebec, vowing to blot it out in 
blood ; but daunted by the Frenchmen's muskets they thought bet- 
ter of their purpose, and withdrew. They then swarmed like hor- 



THE JESUITS COME TO QUEBEC. 41 

nets upon the stone convent of the R^collets, on the St. Charles ; 
but here too their courage soon failed them, for the sagacious 
fathers were well armed and safely fortified. The in- iroquois in- 
vaders contented themselves with burning two Huron Xigonquiif 
prisoners before the eyes of the horrified priests, and t'^e^'^^^^'7- 
then vanished to their own land. The hostility of the Iroquois 
was only what Champlain had looked for. But a short time after- 
wards he was cut to the quick by treachery among the Montagnais 
of the St. Lawrence, an Algonquin tribe whom he had befriended, 
and fought for, and fed from his own too scanty stores. A band 
of these fickle savages conspired to seize Quebec and murder their 
benefactors. Champlain crushed the feeble plot with ease ; and 
the abashed conspirators were soon suing piteously for his favour 
and his gifts. These perils happily past, Champlain took his young 
wife back to France. She had had five years of Quebec, and her 
taste for colonizing was somewhat more than satisfied. 

The patronage of Canada now again changed hands. It was 
purchased by a religious enthusiast, the Duke de Ventadour. 

Champlain remained a year or two in France, leaving _ 

^ ^ ' o /j-jjg Jesuits 

Emery de Caen in command of the colony. De Ven- come to 
■' ■' Quebec, 

tadour cared neither for trade nor settlement. His one 

concern was to save souls. To this end he sent out three Jesuit 

priests. Fathers Lalemant, Masse, and Br^boeuf. Masse we have 

seen in Acadie, fourteen years before. Their coming was little to 

the taste of the hardy Huguenot, de Caen; but the R^coUets 

made them welcome in their convent on the St. Charles. A 

year later came Fathers Noirot and de la None ; and before 

long the Jesuits had a convent of their own. Father Br^boeuf 

set out for the Huron country ; but hearing that the Hurons 

had just put their R^collet priest to death,^ his heart failed him 

and he turned back. The heroic zeal which was afterwards to 

cover his name with glory had not yet been fanned into flame. 

When Champlain at length returned to Quebec, the colony had 

1 This was Father Nicholas Viel, whom the savages drowned in the rapid 
behind Montreal, thence known as the Sault au Recollet. 



42 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

been nearly twenty years in existence. It consisted of one hun- 
dred and five persons in the main settlement, together with an out- 
Progress of post at Cape Tourmente, and small trading stations 
Quebec. ^j. Tadousac and Three Rivers. The trade monopoly 

of the de Caens proved no more beneficial to the colony than that 
of the Associated Merchants ; but it resulted in a huge slaugh- 
ter of beavers. In one year twenty-two thousand beaver skins 
were sent over from the St. Lawrence to France. 

In the meantime, under very different auspices and of very dif- 
ferent material, an English colony was taking root on the bleak 
shores of Massachusetts. While Champlain, as we have seen, was 
tending and watering with anxious care the growth of his feeble 

colony, the Pilgrim Fathers were landing from the 
Quebec and }■>(:> to 

Massachu- Mayflower (1620). From the shivering group of 
stern-eyed exiles on the rocks of Plymouth Bay was 
to grow the destined rival of Quebec. Rivals they were, Quebec 
and Massachusetts, as different in their growth as in their origin. 
The one the child of Absolutism, the other of Revolt : the one 
shaped by the Priest, the other by the Puritan ; the one nourished 
on interference, the other on neglect. 

And now Richelieu, the crafty and masterful, having made the 
monarchy supreme in France and himself the resistless power 
behind the throne, turned his keen eyes on Canada and saw 
the evils with which Champlain was wrestling. He strengthened 
Champlain's hands. He abolished the monopoly of 
Richelieu the de Caens. He organized what is known as the 

takes up the ^ 

cause of "New Company of the Hundred Associates," with 

03.113.(13.. 

himself at its head. The vice-regal authority of de 
Ventadour came to an end, and again a new power was felt shap- 
ing the destiny of Canada. The charter of Richelieu's company 
gave it possession of all New France (Canada, Acadie, Newfound- 
land, and Florida), on the simple tenure of fealty and homage.^ 

1 This consisted in swearing allegiance to the King, and promising military 
■service when required. Tribute, in the form of a crown of gold, was to be given 
.by the colony to each successive occupant of the Throne of France. 



FIRST CAPTURE OF QUEBEC BY ENGLISH. 43 

Religious discord was abolished by the decree that New France 
should be all Roman Catholic. No Huguenot was to set foot on 
its soil. The company was bound under penalty to send out three 
hundred colonists in its first year (1628), and to increase the 
number to six thousand within the next fifteen years. It was 
given a perpetual monopoly of the fur-trade, with a monopoly for 
fifteen years of all other trade but that of the whale and cod fish- 
eries. Further, as a personal gift from the King, it received two 
well-armed battle-ships. Champlain was made one of the Associ- 
ates, and confirmed in his command of Quebec. 

18. First Capture of Quebec by the English. Champlain' s 
Last Days. — While such matters were being arranged in France, 
Quebec, the cause of argument, was starving (1628). Champlain 
had put the colony on short allowance, and was strain- 

r , ., ^ Kirke sum- 

ing his eyes for the sails of expected succour. De mons Quebec 

to surrender. 

Roquemont, sent out by the New Company, had left 
Dieppe for Quebec with a fleet of eighteen vessels, heavily laden. 
But war, meanwhile, had been declared between France and Eng- 
land ) and an English fleet, under Admiral Kirke, was steering for 
the same destination. Kirke was the first to arrive. Anchoring 
at Tadousac, he sent a boat up to Quebec and made courteous 
demand for surrender. With dismay the high-hearted " Father 
of Canada " surveyed his starving garrison, his empty ammunition 
room, his ill-built ramparts crumbling under the weather. But 
to the enemy he turned a fearless front. Sending word that he 
would abide the issue of combat, he assured the EngUsh admiral 
that Quebec would not prove an easy prey. 

Deceived by this show of confidence Kirke with- gg retires on 
drew. But fate was in his favour. Off" Gasp^ he met defi^t^fe^u- 
de Roquemont's fleet, which he captured after a hot ®^^' 
struggle. He gained rich booty, and the hope of Quebec was 
shattered. 

The misery of the colony grew deeper as the months dragged 
on. Champlain set his people digging wild roots in the woods. 
He sent out a boat to scour the Gaspd coast for a friendly trader. 



44 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



In the following year he even thought of the desperate expedient 

of abandoning Quebec, marching into the Iroquois country, and 

seizing one of those paHsaded towns, wherein, as he 

He comes ... 

again in well knew, he might count on finding an abundant 

force; and 

puebecpasses store of corn. But ere he could make up his mind 
hands of to such a Step, Kirke returned. The fort which had 

last year defied him now hailed him as a deliverer. 
Joy reigned in the starving colony; and Champlain at once 
capitulated, obtaining honourable terms from the courteous ad- 
miral. The settlers were invited to remain on their little hold- 
ings ; and the flag of England, for the first time, floated over 
Quebec (1629). 

Meanwhile peace had been proclaimed at the Convention of 
Susa, and Kirke's action was therefore unlawful. There was little 
Peace pro- desire in France, however, to press for the restitution 
claimed. ^j- Canada, which had fallen under the shadow of royal 

disfavour. But Champlain was not to be frowned down. He 
urged upon the court the vast importance of the St. Lawrence, 
and the necessity of curbing the growth of English power. We 
may reasonably suppose that he foresaw the nature, though not 
the issue, of the struggle which had already begun on the continent 
of North America. At length, in 1632, the Treaty of St. Germain- 
Canada and en-Laye was signed. One of its conditions was the 
restored to restoration of Canada and Acadie to France. This 
France. condition was insisted upon, not because Canada was 

thought to be of value in itself, but because the honour of France 
seemed at stake ; and it was accepted by England most unwillingly. 

As soon as the treaty was signed, Emery de Caen was sent out 

to Quebec to receive the fort from Kirke. To de Caen was 

granted the monopoly of the fur-trade for one year, 

Champlain i ■ ir r i i i • i 

dies governor that he might recompense himselr tor the losses which 

the war had brought upon him. In the following year 

the Hundred Associates again took control, and Champlain became 

governor of Quebec. And now peace reigned at the foot of the 

great promontory. The Huguenots were expelled, the R^collets 



CHAMPLAIN'S LAST DAYS. 45 

had removed to other fields, and life in Canada took on a hue of 
monasticism, austere but not ungracious. Quebec existed, as it 
seemed, for but one purpose, the conversion of the savages, 
who were now lured in by kindness instead of by brandy. .. The 
settlers, some of whom had left a past in France which would not 
bear looking into, vied with each other in penitence and zeal. 
The two years that followed were the brightest which Canada had 
yet seen. Champlain was now sixty-eight years of age. He was 
beginning to feel that his labours had not been in vain. He was 
beginning to see that the tree which he had planted with zeal 
was going to bear good fruit. Amid all this blessed augury he 
fell sick; and on Christmas Day, 1635, the colony of which he is 
well called father was orphaned of his wise and faithful care. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SECTIONS : — 19, the Scotch in Acadie. 20, the de la Tours, 
Father and Son. 21, the Struggle between de la Tour and 
Charnisay. 22, the Latter Days and Death of Charnisay. 
Changes in Ownership of Acadie. 

19. The Scotch in Acadie. — Turning again to Acadie, we find 
that the struggle between France and England, begun by Argall 
Sir William ^.t St. Sauveur and Port Royal, continued almost with- 
and^Nov" ^ut cessation. The contest took on at times — 
Scotia. though alas, hot often — the peaceful aspect of a 

mere rivalry in endurance and colonizing skill. A little colony of 
Scotchmen was planted on the shores of Port Royal Basin ; and 
between these colonists and the French of Port Royal itself there 
seems to have been good-will. The Scotch settlement came 
about in this way. Waking up to the fact that the British Crown, 
by virtue of Cabot's discoveries, had a claim upon the whole of 
the North American continent, King James I resolved to assert 
this claim. In 1614 he granted to the " Association of the Grand 
Council of Plymouth" all the lands of America lying between the 
45th and 48th parallels; and he called the grant New England. 
Thus America had now a New England, a New Spain, a New 
France ; and to a patriotic Scotchman, Sir William Alexander, it 
seemed well that there should be also a New Scotland. Sir 
William was a man of letters and a courtier. His nimble imagi- 
nation soon supplied him with a scheme ; and his influence at 
court enabled him to push the scheme forward. He obtained 
from the King a grant of the Acadian peninsula with Cape Breton 
Island and that roomy corner of the mainland now occupied by 

46 



THE SCOTCH IN A CAD IE. 47 

New Brunswick and Gasp6. To the whole of this region Sir 
William gave the name of Nova Scotia, — a name which time has 
narrowed down to the peninsula and the island. The name and 
charter of Nova Scotia were given in 162 1. 

Sir William began in a very moderate way the peopling of his 
great dominion. But he did not attempt to dispossess the French 
settlers. Acadie was in the strong hands of Bien- The claims of 
court and the de la Tours ; and after sending out one and°charies 
small detachment of Scotch settlers Sir WiUiam de- ^^ ^^ ^°'"'- 
cided to wait for a more favourable opportunity. Biencourt, 
indeed, held from the French King a title by no means agreeable 
to Sir William's claims, namely that of Commandant of Acadie. 
Soon after the coming of the Scotch the indomitable Biencourt 
died, leaving his title and responsibilities to his tried comrade in 
arms, the younger de la Tour. Charles de la Tour occupied a 
strong post called Fort Louis, near Cape Sable ; ^ while his father, 
Claude, held a trading-post on the Penobscot River, in Maine. 
Sir William Alexander contented himself, for some years, with 
sending a ship each season to trade and explore in his domains. 
De la Tour refrained from precipitating a contest, perhaps thinking 
that when the thrifty Scotchmen had once got well estabhshed 
they would grow to be a prize worth seizing. When, in 1625, 
James died, Sir WiUiam's grant was ratified by King Charles. 
Forthwith the ingenious courtier devised a scheme which, had it 
been carried out with the backing of a patriotic sovereign, would 
have resulted in a sohd Scotch Acadia, and would have forced 
back the edge of battle between France and England to the very 
banks of the St. Lawrence. 

This scheme of Sir William's, which, for all the derision so lib- 
erally showered upon it, was much in harmony with the spirit of 
that age, was no less than the establishment of an Order _, _ . .^ 

° ' The Knights- 

of Knights-Baronets of Nova Scotia (162s). In re- Baronetsof 

^ V 0/ Nova Scotia, 

turn for certain substantial contributions to the treasury 

of the colony, and on condition of planting actual settlements on 

1 On a harbour now known as Port Latour. 



48 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

their respective grants, there was given to each of these new 
Knights-Baronets an estate of eighteen square miles. During the 
next ten years were issued no fewer than one hundred and seven 
patents of this new order of nobiUty. Their estates were scat- 
tered over the peninsula, Cape Breton, New Brunswick, and even 
the sterile solitudes of Anticosti. 

While the scheme was ripening, war broke out between France 
and England ; and Sir VViUiam judged the time was come for him 

to enter his kingdom. By a strange coincidence. 
Port Royal ^ ^ ^ ' 

seized by Richelieu was at the very moment organizing his com- 
pany of the Hundred Associates. Kirke's expedition, 
which we have already seen at Tadousac vainly summoning Cham- 
plain to surrender, was the visible power of Sir William Alexander 
put forth to grasp his domains. When the English admiral shat- 
tered de Roquemont's fleet, he destroyed the hope not of Cham- 
plain only, but also of Charles de la Tour. For with the ill-starred 
ships of de Roquemont was Claude de la Tour, carrying arms and 
supplies to put Port Royal in a state of defence. Claude de la 
Tour was sent with other prisoners to England ; and Kirke, bear- 
ing down upon Port Royal, found it in no condition to oppose him. 
He took possession in the name of Sir William Alexander, and 
presently sailed away, leaving a small garrison in charge to make 
ready for the coming of colonists. Charles de la Tour, meanwhile, 
defiant but circumspect, shut himself up in his fort of St. Louis, 
at Cape Sable, and waited to see what would happen. 

A year later, about the time of Champlain's surrender of 

Quebec, an English captain, Lord James Stuart, suddenly realized 

the strategic importance of Cape Breton as the guar- 

between dian of the Gulf. He straightway built a fort at the 

France and . 

England in eastern corner of the island. But of short life was 

Cape Breton. , „ , , . . _ . 

his venture. A French war-ship, under one Captam 

Daniel, swept down upon the fledgling stronghold, captured the 

garrison, and demolished the fortifications. At the mouth of the 

Big Bras d'Or, Daniel erected, under the Lilies of France, a fort 

of stronger ramparts and heavier guns. The fortune of France 



THE DE LA TOURS, FATHER AND SON. 49 

in the New World and elsewhere seemed nearing eclipse ; but 
from these lonely defences in Cape Breton, as from de la Tour's 
undaunted battlements at Cape Sable, it shed an untrembling ray 
of hope and fortitude. 

20. The de la Tours, Father and Son. — These two de la Tours, 
Claude and his more illustrious son Charles, are picturesque and 
important figures in our history. Their family name 
was St. Etienne. Claude de St. Etienne was lord of charies de la 

Tour. 

the manor of la Tour, in France ; but, being a Hugue- 
not, his fortunes were ruined in the civil war which rent his father- 
land. With his stripling son he had betaken himself to Poutrin- 
court's colony at Port Royal. Four years later fell the thunderbolt 
of Argall's raid, and the de la Tours were once more homeless. 
Claude then established a trading-post at the mouth of the 
Penobscot River ; while Charles, as we have seen, threw himself 
into the wild life of the woods and became the broth er-in-arms 
of Biencourt. In such a life his shrewdness, daring, self-reliance, 
and patience under reverses, were trained to the highest develop- 
ment. When he fell heir to Biencourt's powers and possessions, 
he was able to give a refuge to his father, whom adversity had 
again overtaken. The jealousy of the New England colonists had 
driven Claude de la Tour from his post on the Penobscot. Soon 
after Biencourt's death Charles had removed his headquarters 
from Port Royal to Cape Sable, where he had built that Fort 
St. Louis already spoken of. About this time, from among the 
daughters of his Huguenot countrymen he took to himself a wife, 
— a woman who, by her beauty and her gentle breeding, her 
heroism and her misfortunes, was destined to win the most 
romantic immortality in our annals. 

When the war broke out between France and England de la 
Tour strove to strengthen his position. He sent his father home 
to beg the King for aid. The mission was successful ; ciaude de la 
and Claude de la Tour was on his way back to Acadie Jv"/to°the 
with ships, men, and munitions of war enough to have ^"S^^^^- 
made her impregnable, when, as we have seen, the heavy hand 



50 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

of Kirke intervened. While the son, shut up with his hardy 
colonists at Fort St. Louis, upheld through those dark hours his 
country's flag, his father was being flattered and feasted at the 
court of England. To Claude de la Tour, as to many of her Hugue- 
not sons, his own country had proved a harsh step-mother ; and that 
astute observer of men, Sir William Alexander, saw in him a fit in- 
strument for the working out of his plans. De la TcHir was heaped 
with favours. He married a lady of the court. Both he and his 
son were made Knights- Baronets of Nova Scotia with a more than 
princely endowment of forty-five .hundred square miles along the 
Atlantic coast. In return he promised that he would win his son to 
the English cause, and hand over the whole of Acadie to Sir William. 
But the ever unfortunate nobleman had promised more than 
he could perform. With two ships full of colonists he sailed for 
_ , ., , Nova Scotia in the summer of 1630 ; and within the 

11.6 i^llS lO 

break down walls of Fort St. Louis he unfolded his designs to his 

his son's _ ° 

fidelity to son. The Sturdy defender of Acadie would not hear 
France. 

him. Charles de la Tour was holding his post for 

France, and he was neither to be purchased nor persuaded. Find- 
ing his threats and his entreaties alike vain, the father in despair 
attempted force ; but his assault was beaten off. The picture is a 
strange and painful one. In deep humiliation Claude de la Tour 
withdrew to Port Royal, and landed his settlers among the Scotch 
already established there. In his distress he begged the lady 
whom he had married, and to whom he had promised luxury and 
power in his new possessions, that she would forsake him and 
return to England ; but she refused, vowing to share his evil fort- 
unes not less than his prosperity. When two years later, by the 
Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, Nova Scotia and Canada were 
ceded back to France by that short-sighted monarch who could 
not see beyond his queen's dowry,^ Claude de la Tour was forced 
to take refuge with his son at Fort St. Louis. He was soon after- 
wards sent by Charles to build a fort at the mouth of the St. John ; 

1 Charles I gave up these territories under the threat of Richelieu that otherwise 
Queen Henrietta Maria's dowry, 400,000 crowns, would not be paid. 



ISAAC DE RAZILLY. 



51 



and from this period he fades out of prominence on the pages of 
Acadian story. To his son and to his son's wife belongs all the 
lustre which shines about the name of de la Tour. In recognition 
of Charles de la Tour's faithful zeal for France, he was commis- 
sioned in 1 63 1 as the King's lieutenant-general in Acadie. Stores, 
men, and munition of war were sent out to him, that there might 
be solid power behind his honour. 

21. The Struggle between de la Tour and Charnisay. — When 
France found herself once more in possession of Canada and 
Acadie, she apparently awoke to the importance of her New 
World empire. Her indifference was at an end \ and Growing 
from this point onward the great struggle between the Canada* and 
Lilies and the Lions ^ wears a more definite shape, ■^^^'^i^- 
The acute vision of Richelieu saw into it ; and though Charles of 
England, neither patriot nor statesman, ignored it, the eyes of the 
keen pioneers on Massachusetts Bay were not long blind to its drift. 

The task of dispossessing the Scotch and making Acadie once 
more a French colony was committed to Isaac de Razilly, a relative 
of the great Cardinal, and a distinguished captain in the royal navy. 
In the spring of 1632 he came to Acadie with a shipload of colo- 
nists, received the submission of the Scotch settlers isaacde 
at Port Royal, and then fixed his headquarters at La ^^^^^^y- 
Heve. This harbour was preferred to Port Royal as a more con- 
venient centre from which to work the rich fisheries of the Atlan- 
tic coast. With de Razilly came two persons of importance — 
Nicholas Denys, destined to succeed Lescarbot as the picturesque 
historian of Acadie, and the Seigneur d'Aulnay Charnisay, doomed 
to an unenviable fame as the traitorous conqueror of a noble foe. 

While de Razilly, at La Heve, busied his colonists with good 
fishing and poor farming, his lieutenant Charnisay was thrusting 
back the New Englanders. The indefatigable Plymouth Colony, 

1 From a very early day the symbol of French royalty, and the distinguishing 
feature of the French royal standard, was the Lily or Fleur-de-Lys. The Lions 
of the British standard are derived from the House of Plantagenet, and are, strictly 
speaking, not lions at all, but leopards. The only true lion on the standard is that 
of Scotland. 



52 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

after ousting Claude de la Tour from his post on the Penobscot, had 
themselves established there a trading-depot. This post Charni- 
charnisay Say took possession of; and he sent curt warning to 
the'New^'''^ the New Englanders, saying that, as they were trespass- 
Engianders. ^^^ ^^ jj^g territory of France, he would come pres- 
ently and remove them all to the south of Cape Cod. Highly 
incensed at this confident insolence of the French, the New Eng- 
landers made ready to chastise it ; but jealousy between Plymouth 
and Boston prevented them working together. Nothing but joint 
action could have prevailed against a vigorous foe like Charnisay. 
A feeble expedition sent out from Plymouth against the Penobscot 
fort was sharply punished ; and for some years afterwards the 
French were left in undisturbed possession. Another trading-post 
had been set up by the New Englanders at Machias, far east of 
the Penobscot. This was destroyed by de la Tour, who shipped 
the crestfallen traders back to Plymouth Bay. In spite of these 
rough measures, which carried the fringe of conflict far south of 
Acadian soil, there was as yet no malignity of hate in the rivalry 
between New England and New France. In their contests all 
the courtesies of battle were observed : and in the intervals of 
peace their colonists traded amicably. Neither had yet realized 
that this duel was to the death. 

But Acadie was now to be torn by the fangs of civil strife. In 
1636 the excellent de Razilly died ; and Acadie was left under the 
divided headship of de la Tour and Charnisay. De la Tour was the 
lieutenant of the King ; Charnisay had been the lieutenant of de 
Razilly. Both were ambitious, masterful, untiring. A conflict was 
inevitable. De la Tour had received a grant of some four hun- 
De la Tour at dred and fifty square miles around the mouth of the 
St. John. gj._ Jq1^j;^_ Completing and enlarging the fort which 
his father had begun, he removed his headquarters thither, leaving 
his father in charge of Fort St. Louis. The new fort at the St. 
John's mouth was a strongly palisaded structure one hundred and 
eighty feet square, with four bastions ; and here, with his wife and 
his children, his soldiers, his labourers, and his devoted red allies, 



CHARNISAY INTRIGUES AGAINST DE LA TOUR. 53 

he lived in a rough but real sovereignty. Directly across the water, 
at Port Royal, behind a line of blue heights visible in clear weather 
from Fort la Tour, dwelt Charnisay, who had fallen heir to no small 
portion of Razilly's estates and privileges. Charnisay had rebuilt 
and refortified Port Royal, removing thither most of the La Heve 
colonists and settling them on the fertile meadows along his 
threshold river. His aim was to make money by the fur-trade; 
and the abounding prosperity of his rival over the bay, whose 
position on the St. John enabled him to intercept the trade of the 
inland tribes, filled him with wrath. 

Charnisay set himself to the task of undermining de la Tour's 
influence at court. At first he met with little success ; but after 
several years of persistent intrigue, of which his rival 

, , , , , • Charnisay 

was aU unconscious, he got what he sought. This was gets orders to 

take de la 
an order from the ungrateful and forgetful King, sum- Tour to 

moning de la Tour back to France to stand trial on a 
number of trumped-up charges. In case of de la Tour refusing to 
obey the King's order, Charnisay was authorized to carry him to 
France by force. When de la Tour learned, with natural astonish- 
ment, that not only was he deprived of his rank as the King's lieu- 
tenant-general, of his possessions, and of his means of livehhood, 
but that he was to be carried a prisoner to France, he was not 
long in deciding what to do. He refused obedience, and dared 
his foe to arrest him. Seeing his strong walls and his veteran 
ranks, Charnisay was afraid to fight. He withdrew to Port Royal, 
and sent home a formal report of de la Tour's disobedience. Both 
antagonists now braced themselves for the struggle. Charnisay, 
strong in the great Cardinal's friendship, sought and found assist- 
ance in Paris. De la Tour's only supporters were the Huguenot 
merchants in his wife's city of Rochelle ; and Rochelle was still 
crippled from the scourge of RicheHeu's hate. 

Early in the spring of 1643 Charnisay was ready to attack. 
One morning, as the fog slowly lifted in front of Fort charnisay's 
la Tour, three ships, with several smaller craft, were *''®* ^t*^*^^- 
seen gliding into the harbour. Charnisay disembarked a force of 



54 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



five hundred men, and led them swiftly to the assault. But de la 
Tour was not caught sleeping. For an hour the storm raged in 
vain on palisade and bastion. Then in baffled fury Charnisay 
ordered off his men. Drawing a strict blockade about fort and 
harbour, he waited for hunger to achieve what his arms could not. 
But de la Tour was a hard prisoner to hold. When the long-ex- 
pected ship from Rochelle, with suppUes and reinforcements, ap- 
peared cautiously off the coast, de la Tour and his wife slipped 
through the blockade by night with muffled oars, were received on 
the friendly deck, and made all sail to Boston for aid. They got it, 
though the prudent men of Boston made them pay well for it. 
Then, while his rival was doubtless dreaming of a speedy triumph, 
de la Tour swept down upon his rear with five ships ready for bat- 
tle. Amazed and overwhelmed, Charnisay fled back to Port Royal, 
de la Tour close at his heels and chastising him on his own thresh- 
old. The quarrel might well have been ended then and there, by 
the capture of Charnisay, and the seizure of Port Royal ; but the 
scruples of de la Tour's allies now stepped in. The thrifty Puritans 
were well satisfied with the rich booty of furs which they had secured. 
They insisted, therefore, on the virtues of moderation, and forced 
de la Tour to stay his hand when his work was but half done. 

Knowing that now it must be all fought over again, de la Tour set 
himself to strengthen his defences, while his wife went to France 
His second to gather help. Thither, too, had gone Charnisay on 
attack. j.|^g g^j^g errand, and there he tried to get Madame de 

la Tour arrested for treason. The lady, however, outwitted him, 
and made good her escape to England. After a whole year's 
absence, she found her way, through a host of perils, back to Fort 
la Tour. Her mission had been partly successful ; and Charnisay, 
knowing this, postponed his next move. A few months later, 
however, de la Tour was forced to make another visit to Boston. 
Promptly on the news of his going came his foe. The watchers 
on the lonely ramparts by the tide could see Charnisay's cruisers 
flitting to and fro just beyond the harbour mouth, waiting to catch 
de la Tour on his return. Within the fort supplies ran low, but 



LADY DE LA TOUR'S DEFENCE OF THE FORT. 55 

cheered by the dauntless courage of their fair leader the garrison 
kept good heart. Presently traitors were discovered in their 
midst, two spies of Charnisay. They would have been hxing 
forthwith from the ramparts, but that Lady de la Tour was too com- 
passionate. She contented herself with driving them from the 
gates ; and they slunk off to their master with news that the food 
was low, the powder nearly all gone, and the garrison too weak to 
withstand assault. Charnisay's battle-ship at once moved up 
beneath the walls, and opened fire. But their leader's example 
had made her men all heroes, and the enemy met so hot a fire 
that he drew off with a sinking ship and shattered Ladydeia 
forces. This was in February. Not till April did he fe°ifce ome 
return to the attack \ but he kept a blockade so rigid **"^*" 
that no help could reach the doomed fort. De la Tour's ship 
hung despairing in the offing. 

One still spring night came the beginning of the end. The 
sentry on the ramparts caught the sound of rattling cables, the 
splash of lowering boats. With dawn the struggle began. Char- 
nisay had disembarked under cover of night. He led his attack 
against the landward and weaker side of the fort. The courage 
of the defenders was a courage without hope, for they, as well as 
their leader, knew that fate had decided against them. Yet from 
Thursday till Saturday the indomitable woman fronted every 
charge, and the enemy gave way before her. At last a Swiss mer- 
cenary in the garrison turned traitor, bought by Charnisay's gold, 
and threw open the great gates of the fort. But even then, 
although within the walls, Charnisay was not yet victorious. He 
was met so desperately that a mean fear seized him, lest he 
should again endure defeat by a- woman. Professing admiration 
for such splendid courage, he called for a truce, and offered hon- 
ourable terms. Wishing to save her faithful followers, charnisay's 
Lady de la Tour yielded, and set her name to the victor^rand 
articles of surrender. Then came the act which has '^^^ crime, 
brought Charnisay's name down in a blaze of infamy. His end 
once gained, and the fort in his hands, he mocked the woman 



56 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

whom he could not conquer in fair fight, and tore up the capitula- 
tion before her face. The brave garrison he took man by man, 
and hung them in the open yard of the fort ; while their mistress, 
sinking with horror, was held to watch their struggles, with a 
halter about her neck. Charnisay carried her to Port Royal ; and 
there, within three weeks of the ruin of her husband, the destruc- 
tion of her home, the butchery of her loved and loyal followers, 
the heroine of Acadie died of a broken heart (1645). 

22. Latter Days and Death of Charnisay. Changes in the 
Ownership of Acadie. — The next few years saw de la Tour a wan- 
Death of derer ; while Charnisay, supreme in Acadie and secure 
Charnisay. -^^ court favour, reaped the rich harvest of the fur- 
trade and made a treaty of amity with New England. The only 
thorn remaining in his side was the independent holding of 
Nicholas Denys, in Cape Breton. There Denys, under privileges 
granted by the King, was growing wealthy on the rich fisheries of 
the Gulf. Denys and Charnisay had been schoolboy-comrades ; 
but in Charnisay's eyes such matters were of small account. 
He attacked his old friend's forts, seized his goods, broke up 
his settlement, and drove him to take refuge in Quebec. This 
done, he could look with pride on his achievements. At Port 
Royal he ruled a fair and flourishing community, farming the rich 
acres which his dikes had reclaimed from the tide. His own 
ships, built at Port Royal, throve in trade. On Acadian land or 
in Acadian waters no one could sell a codfish or barter a beaver- 
skin without paying tribute to his coffers. Although a robber, a 
false accuser, a traitor, and a murderer, we have no record to 
show that his conscience troubled him. Perhaps he felt that these 
failings might be overlooked, in consideration of the fact that he 
had been zealous to christianize the Indians. The future looked 
very fair before him ; but just at the height of his good fortune he 
chanced to fall into his turbid little river of Port Royal, and was 
drowned in its deep eddies. 

During his five years of homeless wandering, chiefly in New 
England and the St. Lawrence valley, de la Tour had been treated 



CHANGES IN OWNERSHIP OF ACADIE. 



57 



everywhere, in spite of his ruined fortunes, with a consideration 

which is the best witness to his great quahties. Immediately 

on Charhisay's death he hastened to France, where DeiaTour 

he speedily confuted the slanders of his er^emy. The "tay^s ^'^^^' 

King made him the fullest restitution in his power, "^^'^o"'^- 

giving him back his estates, and appointing him governor of all 

Acadie. The fur-trade was his, and his fortunes mended rapidly. 

But at Port Royal there remained an obstacle to his triumph, the 

widow and children of Charnisay, who were heirs at law to all their 

father's possessions. The problem here presented, de la Tour soon 

solved, not with the sword, but with a ceremony. He married 

the widow of his foe, and took her children under his protection. 

But fate was preparing yet other surprises for him. Charnisay 

had got himself overwhelmingly in debt to one Emmanuel le Borgne, 

a rich merchant of Rochelle. Coming to Acadie to 

Le Borgne 
collect his claim, le Borgne conceived the idea of seiz- seizes a part 

ing the whole country. He overthrew the indefatigable 

Denys, who had reestabhshed his fisheries in Cape Breton, took 

Port Royal, and was meditating the capture of de la Tour's fort by 

stratagem, when the kaleidoscope of fortune gave another turn, 

and things fell into yet another pattern. The surprise was now 

le Borgne's. 

England, under the vigorous rule of Cromwell, had been at war 
with Holland. An expedition was organized to capture the Dutch 
settlements of New Amsterdam, at the mouth of the Hudson 
River. The ships reached Boston, where 500 colonists enlisted 
in the enterprise. Just then came the unwelcome news of peace 
between England and Holland. Here was a strong force organ- 
ized, ready to accomplish anything that might be found for it to 
do. There was Acadie, a pleasant fruit to be plucked. Boston 
was never long in making up her mind ; and the English ships 
were steered for Fort la Tour. 

Quite unprepared for such an attack, de la Tour surrendered. 
Port Royal soon followed, after a feeble defence by le Borgne ; 
and all Acadie was again in English hands (1654). An English 



58 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

governor was placed in charge of Port Royal ; but the settlers 
The English were left undisturbed in their possessions, with liberty 
Boigne^ini^ °^ conscience and of person. The French court 
whoie^coun- Pressed angrily for disallowance of this act of the New 
^^- Englanders, and for the instant restoration of Acadie ; 

but Cromwell would listen to anything rather than that. He 
understood the nature of the New World problem. 

De la Tour was again, to all appearance, ruined. But he, like 

Ulysses, was no less sagacious than brave. He went at once to 

England. So skilfully and persuasively did he lay his 

granted to case before the Iron Protector, pleading the grant 

Crowne' and made by Charles I to himself and his father, that 

de la Tour. ^ . -4. j 

Cromwell, loving a man oi capacity and resource, ga\e 

him back his own with interest. A vast region on the peninsula 
and mainland extending far into what is now Maine, was granted to 
a company consisting of de la Tour, a colonel of Cromwell's named 
Thomas Temple, and an ambitious divine by the name of William 
Crowne.^ To this triumvirate was allowed the fullest trade mo- 
nopoly ; and Temple was made governor. De la Tour, having by 
this time had enough of vicissitudes, and foreseeing further trouble 
between France and England, sold out his vast interests to his 
two partners and sank into the well-earned ease of private life. 
Temple spent great sums in developing his colony ; but the death 
of Cromwell, and the Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, brought 
him grave embarrassments. He hurried back to England to look 
after his interests. By his wit and knowledge of men he won 
the favour of Charles II, and returned to Acadie with the royal 
confirmation of his privileges. All went well for some years ; till 
at length war broke out between France and England, a war which 

no Englishman remembers without shame. When 
Acadie ceded ° 

back to the Treaty of Breda was signed, in 1667, Acadie was 

ignominiously handed back to France in return for a 
little sugar-island in the West Indies. Thus blind was Charles to 
the pointing finger of destiny. 

1 " Crowne was the father of John Crowne the Dramatist, who was born in 
Nova Scotia." — Hannay. 



CHAPTER V. 

SECTIONS : — 23, the Work of the Jesuits. 24, the Found- 
ing OF Montreal. 25, the Destruction of the Huron 
Mission. 26, New France and New England. The Jesuits 
AND THE Iroquois. 27, Laval. Dollard. 28, Dissensions in 
Quebec. The Great Earthquakes. 

23. The Work of the Jesuits. — While the Acadian corner of 
New France was thus serving as the plaything of Fortune, affairs 
had moved more quietly in the valley of the St. Lawrence. 
Richelieu's One Hundred Associates had begun their work with 
zeal, yet Quebec grew but slowly. The central figures of this 
period are the Jesuits, whose missions to the Hurons of the Great 
Lakes are an imperishable ornament to their record. Their 
influence was now supreme in Quebec, the Recollets having been 
recalled. The new governor, de Montmagny, sent out within a 
few months of Champlain's death, was an ardent supporter of the 
Jesuits. Church and State appeared inseparable. Life in Quebec 
became cloistral in its severity. Attendance at church was as 
strictly required, and absence as sternly punished, as in the austere 
Boston of the Puritans. 

From this time date the Relations des Jesuites, or "Jesuit Narra- 
tions," so important to the early history of Canada, so illuminated 
with brave deeds and martyrdoms. The glowing ac- The Jesuit 
counts sent home to France by Father le Jeune stirred Sanations, 
up the zeal of the devout, and it was now that the chief colleges and 
hospitals of Quebec were founded. A Jesuit college was endowed 
by the Marquis de Gamache, in 1636. Another nobleman, Noel 

59 



6o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

de Silleri, established a sort of home for Indian converts, above 
Quebec, at a spot whose name now commemorates his pious 
action. The Hotel Dieu was endowed by the Duchess d'Aiguil- 
lon, and the task of caring for its inmates was undertaken by 
three devoted hospital nuns of Dieppe. A seminary 

Religious ^ , '^ ^ •' 

institutions for the instruction of young girls was the next thing 
called for by the spiritual directors of the colony ; and 
this was presently founded by a wealthy young widow, Madame 
de la Peltrie, who brought her fortune and her services to Canada. 
While the Jesuits worked in every direction, enduring great 
hardships of hunger, cold, and filth among the Montagnais and 
The Jesuit Other tribes of the harsh north-east, their greatest work 
mHurons "^^s done in the Huron country. The Hurons were 
begun. j^y |-^j. j.|^g most progressive of the Canadian Indians. 

The first efforts of Father Breboeuf to reach the Hurons were not 
successful : but his zeal grew till no obstacle could restrain it. 
At length, with Fathers Daniel and Davoust, he accomplished his 
object. A mission was established at Thonatiria on Georgian 
Bay, near Penetanguishene. The position of these missionaries, 
though less painful than that of their fellow-workers among the 
Montagnais, was far more perilous. There was a strong party in 

the tribe which bitterly opposed them, ascribing to 
Its success. ^11 ' o 

their influence every misfortune of the Huron lodges. 
This party, clinging to their ancient faith, professed to regard the 
sacraments and services of the Fathers as evil incantations. The 
leaders of this party were the craftiest of their tribe, the powerful 
medicine men, who saw in the "Black Robes," as they called the 
missionaries, the supplanters of their influence. When a baptized 
child fell sick, when a strange disease appeared, when a hunt 
turned out badly, when a crop was bitten by the frost, their mur- 
, murings grew loud and indignities were heaped upon the priests. 
At such times they dwelt in hourly peril of the crudest death. 
In the midst of all this they were vexed by scandals at Quebec, 
where, Thonatiria being well situated for the fur-trade, they were 
accused of illegally following this traffic. But gradually the 



THE WORK OF THE JESUITS. 6 1 

Fathers, by their patience, their courage, their tender and untir- 
ing care of the sick, won the affections of the tribe. Their ene- 
mies were discomfited. Other priests came to the mission, and 
the whole Huron nation presently bowed to their guidance. 
They established their central station, called Ste. Marie, on a httle 
river falhng into Matchedash Bay. Other stations — St. Louis, 
St. Ignace, St. Jean, St. Michel, St. Joseph — were scattered over 
the country between Thonatiria and the lake now called Simcoe. 
Hither fled, from the south and east, trembling remnants of 
Algonquin and other tribes, scattered before the tomahawks of the 
Iroquois like sheep before wolves. The hospitality of the Fathers 
was princely, their authority supreme ; but under their care the 
Huron warriors grew slothful, and forgot the sleepless menace 
lurking south of the Great River. 

Meanwhile the Iroquois were again scourging the lower St. 
Lawrence. They had lost thefr dread of the French muskets, 
and they carried their defiance up to the walls of Marguerie 
Quebec and Three Rivers. In the summer of 1641 f^quofsat 
the latter post was approached by a large Iroquois Three Rivers, 
war party. Some months before, they had captured two French- 
men of the settlement, one Godefroy, and an interpreter named 
Frangois Marguerie. This man was now sent, under flag of truce, 
to the commander of the fort, to urge disgraceful terms upon the 
French. The demand of the invaders was that the French should 
make peace with them, and abandon their Algonquin allies to the 
Iroquois hatchet. The heroic Marguerie, a modern Regulus, coun- 
selled his people to reject the dishonouring offer; and then, to 
keep his word and save his fellow-captive, returned to face the 
tortures which he knew would be his fate. But while the negotia- 
tions were under way the governor arrived from Quebec with a 
small force ; and the Iroquois, seeing that they had lost their 
advantage, consented to the ransom of their prisoners. The 
brave interpreter was saved from the fate whose agonizing horrors 
had failed to turn him from his duty. Saved, too, was the French 
honour ; and the Iroquois, after a random skirmish, departed. 



62 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

24. The Founding of Montreal. — While Canada was thus 
aglow with religious fervour, and pious hearts in France were 
Montreal catching flame from her enthusiasm, Montreal was 
Island. founded. This proud city, the queen of Canadian 

commerce, was the child of an uncalculating devotion. The 
object of its founders was to establish an outpost against the 
enemies of the faith. The site that commended itself to their 
rapt vision was the natural vortex for the great currents of trade 
soon to be set flowing in Canada. The prophetic eye of Cham- 
plain saw this, as early as 161 1. 

The settlement came about in this fashion. Certain devout 

men in France, chief among them Father Olier of the Sulpicians, 

and Monsieur de la Dauversiere, were fired with zeal to found a 

college, a hospital, and a seminary in Canada. The Island of 

Montreal, after much negotiation, they succeeded in 

The Society ' & 5 / 

ofNotreDame purchasing from its owner, one of the Hundred Asso- 
de Montreal. ^ 

ciates. The Society of Notre Dame de Montreal was 

organized. The schemes for a seminary and college being set 

aside for a time, the society resolved to devote its energies to 

the hospital. The name of Ville- Marie de Montreal was given 

to the proposed city, which was dedicated to the Holy Family. 

In the selection of a leader for their enterprise the society made 

a wise choice. They appointed governor of Ville- 

The building j ft- o 

ofViiie-Marie Marie the brave and chivalrous de Maisonneuve, rich 

de Montreal. . , 

ill experience of court and camp. To superintend 
the hospital was chosen an ardent young religionist, Mademoiselle 
Jeanne Mance ; and a wealthy widow named Madame de Bullion, 
becoming interested in the scheme, supplied funds wherewith to 
build it a habitation. 

In 1 64 1 Maisonneuve sailed from Rochelle, with three ships, 
and half a hundred settlers for his new city. When the expe- 
dition arrived at Quebec, the prudent governor, de Montmagny, 
sought to change their purpose. Realizing the peril that threat- 
ened Canada from the Iroquois, he was opposed to any scatter- 
ing of her feeble forces. Already he was finding it hard enough 



THE FOUNDING OF MONTREAL. 6$ 

to protect his near outposts. He wished the new plantation, 
instead of seeking the heart of the hostile wilderness, to take 
up rather the Island of Orleans, whence it might join hands of 
brotherhood with Quebec across the channel. But the colonists 
of Ville-Marie were not to be held back- Maisonneuve vowed 
that to Montreal he would go though every tree on the island 
were an Iroquois. That same autumn (October 14th, 1641) the 
site of Ville-Marie was formally dedicated ; but it was too late 
in the season to build, and the expedition wintered in Quebec. 

In the spring work opened with vigour. De Montmagny went 
with the fearless enthusiasts, aided them in their beginnings, and 
finally handed over to Maisonneuve this patch of soil destined 
to such sacrifice and such triumph. The site of Ville-Marie was 
quickly enclosed with palisades, defended by small cannon. The 
hospital, built with Madame de Bullion's money, was set outside 
the walls. A massive stone structure, it was a little fortress in 
itself. So strong was it, indeed, that it withstood all the assaults 
of the Iroquois and the stealthier depredations of time, and only 
gave way, a few years ago, to the inexorable pressure of trade. 

For a time the infant colony was undisturbed, the Iroquois not 
knowing of its existence. But in the following year an Algonquin, 
fleeing before them for his scalp, found refuge within the shelter- 
ing paUsades, and Ville-Marie was revealed to her mortal foe. 
The Iroquois were furious at this bold advance of the French 
into a territory which the terror of their name had made a 
desert ; and it was their settled policy that neither French nor 
Indians should be allowed so near their own borders. In parties 
large and small they thenceforth patrolled the woods about the 
town, and only in well-armed bands could the settlers venture 
outside. The stockade was now regarded as a defence 

Its attack by 

all too frail ; and solid walls and bastions speedily the Iroquois, 

, , . ^,.„ ,, . 1 „ , andMaison- 

replaced it. ViUe-Marie was made a prison ; all hus- neuve's hero- 
bandry was at an end ; and the cutting of fuel in the 
woods became a military operation. Early in the spring of 1644 
the Iroquois attacked in force, vowing that they would wipe out 



4 
64 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the settlement and carry off the "white girls," as they called the 
nuns, to drudge for them in their lodges. Maisonneuve, yielding 
to the persuasion of his too hot-headed followers, went out and 
gave battle beyond the walls. The snow was deep, and soften- 
ing rapidly in the spring sun. No foe was visible at first, but 
scarcely had the daring Httle band penetrated the forest, when, 
as if in answer to Maisonneuve's high protestation, every tree 
seemed to become an Iroquois. Huddled together in amaze- 
ment, unused to forest warfare, the Frenchmen gave their foes 
an easy mark. Taken at such hopeless disadvantage, they were 
compelled to retreat, carrying their dead and wounded. The 
exultant savages hung on their rear, harassing them like dogs 
but not daring to face a hand-to-hand conflict. Maisonneuve, 
with smoking pistols, covered the retreat of his discomfited 
followers. He was the last man to enter the gate. As he 
backed reluctantly to the threshold a tall chief sprang upon 
him to drag him away for torture ; but the war-wise hand of 
Maisonneuve was too swift for his savage antagonist,^ who fell 
gasping in the snow, while the founder of Ville-Marie sprang 
back into safety. 

In these invasions the Iroquois followed the current of the 
Richelieu River, which became known as the " Iroquois track." 
They thus cut Canada in two. Lying in ambush about Lake 
St. Peter, they intercepted the fur-trade, and menaced Quebec 
on the one side as Montreal on the other. To check them de 
Montmagny in 1642 built a fort at the Richelieu mouth. See- 
ing what a thorn in their side it would be, the shrewd savages 
fell upon it at once, but were repulsed. In their retreat they 
Father managed to carry off a Jesuit missionary. Father Jogues, 

jogues. whom, after a course of merciless torture, they kept 

alive in their lodges. Through him came Canada first in contact 
with New York, — then New Netherlands. The Iroquois, on one 
of their trading visits to the Dutch of Albany, took Father Jogues 
with them. The governor of Albany at that time was Van Cor- 

1 The " Place d' Amies" in the heart of Montreal, occupies the scene of this 
adventure, and commemorates it. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HURON MISSIONS. 65 

laer — and all future governors of New York received from the 
Indians the same name. Corlaer helped the brave Jesuit to 
elude his captors, and sent him home to France ; whence, after 
thrilling Paris with his story and his wounds, he hastened back to 
Canada to court once more the martyrdom which he had just 
escaped, — and which his zeal was afterwards to win. 

25. The Destruction of the* Huron Missions. — While the Iro- 
quois were threatening Quebec and attacking Ville-Marie, the Hu- 
ron Missions, as we have seen, were enjoying a success which lulled 
them into false security. Early in the summer of 1648 a party 
of Huron braves from the Mission of St. Joseph descended the 
Ottawa and the St. Lawrence with the furs of their winter's hunt. 
At Three Rivers they were attacked by the Iroquois and won a 
victory. Meanwhile another band of Iroquois had fallen on the 
all but defenceless village. While service was being 
held in the little chapel the painted butchers broke Daniel slain, 
through the palisades and fell with their hatchets upon Mission de- 
the children and old men. The priest in charge was 
Father Daniel, a resolute and fearless man, who strove to organ- 
ize some resistance on the part of his terror-stricken flock. But 
he fell, riddled with arrows, early in the fight. Seven hundred 
prisoners were taken. A few of the villagers fled to the woods ; 
and by sunset the station of St. Joseph was a waste of smoking 
ashes. 

The following spring witnessed the finish of the bloody work. 
The decree of the Iroquois sachems was that the Hurons should be 
wiped out. A war party of 1 200 men entered the Huron region. 
First St. Ignace was surprised, and the inhabitants, save those 
reserved for torture, brained in their sleep. Thirteen other villages 
were burnt, either taken by storm or abandoned by Deaths of 
the horror-stricken people. Then, in the gray of dawn, basuf^an^"^^" 
St. Louis fell ; and the devoted priests Breboeuf and ^^i^mant. 
Lalemant were made prisoners. Enraged by their indomitable 
courage, the savages exhausted the last resources of atrocity in 
torturing them. Breboeuf was scalped, and boiling water poured 



66 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

on his head in mockery of the rite of baptism ; but no complaint 
escaped him. After other and unspeakable horrors, both victims 
were burned at the stake. 

The enemy were now within a few miles of the head Mission, 
the fort of Ste. Marie on the Wye. A band of desperate Hurons 
ste. Marie threw themselves before the tide of death, and fought 
Hm-on cour- ^ "^^7 "^^i^h a revival of their ancient valour. The 
^^®" Iroquois had a certain dread of the little cannons at 

Ste. Marie, and were not over-anxious to face them. Now, 
astonished at this resistance of the Hurons, they conceived an 
idea that all the remnants of the ruined nation were gathering for 
vengeance ; and suddenly they retired from the country, taking 
with them such prisoners as were strong enough to carry burdens, 
and burning the rest. The Mission at Ste. Marie was saved ; but 
there was no longer sufficient reason for its existence. The rich 
and populous country of the Hurons was a desert. Tlie fragments 
of the nation fled in terror to the tribes of west and north, save 
a few hundreds who took refuge on the islands of Georgian Bay. 
To one of these islands the Mission of Ste. Marie was removed ; 
but the Iroquois followed even there, and famine aided their 
assaults. At last it was resolved to give up the Lake country ; 
The Huron 3-i^d the disheartened missionaries, gathering their 
removed to dwindled flock about them, fled toward Quebec. At 
^*"^^'' Sorel, under the very guns of the fort, these trembhng 

survivors of a great people at length found rest and safety. The 
one permanent result of the Huron Mission, over and above the 
splendour which it sheds upon the annals of the Jesuits, was a 
knowledge of Lake Superior. Lake Michigan had been dis- 
covered some years before by the bold interpreter Jean Nicollet. 

26. New France and New England. The Jesuits and the 
Iroquois. — While Canada was writhing under the scourge of the 
Iroquois the New England colonies had thriven with a vigorous 
growth; and about the time of the founding of Ville-Marie they 
had formed themselves, for purposes of defence, into a confed- 
eration called " The United Colonies of New England." This 



THE IROQUOIS SCOURGE. 6/ 

done, they turned their eyes upon the St. Lawrence valley, and 
proposed to d'Ailleboust (who had succeeded de Montmagny as 
governor in 1648) a treaty of perpetual amity and Treaty 
trade between Canada and New England. The pro- between 
posal was received with joy, and Father Druilettes was New Eng-^ 
sent to Boston to negotiate. But just at this time ^^°'^- 
Canada was being deluged with the blood of the Hurons and her 
faithful priests. She therefore made it a condition of the treaty 
that New England should join her in a war of extermination 
against the Iroquois. To this the New Englanders would not 
listen. They were at peace with the Iroquois ; and Failure of ne- 
they minded the adage to let sleeping dogs lie; The gotiations. 
result of Druilettes's embassy was not peace but war, for the Iro- 
quois were stirred up to a yet fiercer flame of hate. At the 
same time the sagacious priest won over the strong tribe of the 
Abenakis, who were thenceforth unswervmg in their devotion to 
the French, and a bitter torment to the Puritan settlements. 

For the next few years the French were practically shut up in 
Quebec and Three Rivers, no less than in. Montreal. The woods 
about their lonely settlements were never free from the tomahawk ; 
and many a French scalp was borne in triumph to the lodges by 
the side of Lake Champlain. These were years of The Iroquois 
anguish for Canada. At length, in 1653 ^'^d 1654, scourge, 
the Iroquois turned the tide of their fury against the tribes along 
the south of the Great Lakes, and for a time relaxed their hostility 
to the French. They were busy in extirpating the strong tribe of 
the Eries. This task they accomplished with their usual thorough- 
ness, but not without heavy loss to themselves. One ^^ ^ 

' -' The Onon- 

of their cantons, that of the Onondagas,^ became so dagas seek 

peace, 
reduced that they wanted to strengthen themselves by 

adopting the remnants of the Hurous. The Hurons were troubled 



1 As shown in the Appendix, the Iroquois were a confederacy of five tribes, or 
cantons, — the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, — whence 
they were called the Five Nations. At a later date they took in the Tuscaroras, 
and became known as the Six Nations. 



68 A IJISrOKY OF- CANADA. 

to know how best to meet these dangerous advances. They were 
unwilUng to forsake the French, and at the same time they feared 
to rebuff their terrible suitors. They consulted with the governor, 
who advised them to consent on condition that the Onondagas 
should at the same time admit a Jesuit mission to their lodges. 
To this the Onondagas agreed. 

The Jesuits had long been anxious to obtain a foothold among 

the Iroquois, hoping thus to release Canada from her misery. 

After some negotiations, and a preliminary visit of 

mission to the Father le Moyne, an expedition was at length sent out 

Onondagas. , ^ , 

to plant a station in the Onondaga country. Besides 
the Hurons who were going to be adopted, there were the Jesuit 
Fathers Chaumonat and Dablon, with nearly fifty Frenchmen under 
a brave officer named Dupuy. The undertaking was a mad one ; 
but the governorship of Canada was then in the incompetent hands 
„, . of de Lauspn. The expedition excited the jealous 

The jealousy * "^ ■' 

of the Mo- wrath of the Mohawks, who attacked it soon after it 

hawks. 

had left Quebec. They were beaten off. however, 

and had to make profuse apologies and excuses to the indignant 

Onondagas. Then, to show that it was only against their ancient 

enemies, the Hurons, that they had aimed their attack, they 

descended upon the Isle of Orleans, and slew or captured all the 

Hurons whom they found working in the fields. With their 

prisoners in full view, and in broad daylight, they paddled past 

the walls of Quebec, shouting their songs of victory, and daring 

the French to the rescue. This insult de Lauson weakly pocketed ; 

and French prestige sank in shame. 

For a little while all went smoothly in the Onondaga country, 

but soon signs of danger began to thicken. The handful of 

Frenchmen, alone amid the hordes of their fierce and 
Escape of the 
Onondaga fickle entertainers, knew that a thousand knives were 

mission. ' 

perpetually itching for their scalps. At length they 

got wind of a plot to destroy them, after which the whole five 

nations of the Iroquois were to rise together and stamp out the 

French name from the St. Lawrence valley. Then appeared the 



LAVAL COMES TO CANADA. 69 

courage and ability of Dupuy, whose rescue of his little command 
forms one of the most brilhant achievements of those stirring days. 
Inside the fort, with the utmost secrecy, some very light, flat- 
bottomed boats were built. Then all the Onondagas were invited 
to a great feast. So lavish of their hospitality were the Frenchmen 
that before the end of the banquet the gorged and drunken guests 
were sunk in sleep. At the approach of dawn, the Frenchmen 
stole away, carrying their boats. It was March, and the ice was 
thin. They were able to force a passage down the Oswego River ; 
but the frail bark canoes of their enemies could not follow them. 
The voyage from the mouth of the Oswego down the St. Lawrence 
to Quebec was one of peculiar peril, at that season and in those 
flat skiffs, but it was triumphantly accomplished. In a short time 
Father le Moyne, who, with his life in his hands, had been work- 
ing among the Mohawks, returned in despair to Quebec ; and the 
Iroquois, scattering to the winds their brief pretence of peace, 
hunted again like wolves through the trembling settlements. 

27. Laval. DoUard. — Ville-Marie was not flourishing under 
its parent company, so in 1658 the Society of Notre Dame de 
Montreal handed it over to the care of a powerful and viiie-Marie 
wealthy organization, the Seminary of St. Sulpicius. totheSuip[- 
An energetic Sulpician Father, the Abbe de Queylus, ^^^°^- 
was sent out to Ville-Marie, where he established the long-intended 
seminary. It was now proposed to raise Canada into a bishopric ; 
and it had doubtless been the intention when de Queylus was sent 
out that this honour should fall upon him. But the independent 
and somewhat liberal Abbe proved by no means acceptable to the 
Jesuits, who succeeded in preventing his appointment. The glori- 
ous record which they had made in Canada entitled their wishes 
to respect, and when they nominated to the high and difiicult ofiice 
a priest of their own views, the nomination was accepted. But 
Quebec was not made an episcopal see. After long Laval comes 
dispute, Francois de Laval, Abb^ de Montigny, was to Canada, 
consecrated bishop of Petraea and sent out as the Pope's vicar 
apostolic to take control of the Church in Canada. He was an 



70 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



iron ascetic, sincere, passionately devoted to his work, but narrow 
and domineering. 

And now the boldness of the Iroquois increased. To show their 
scorn of the French they scalped and slaughtered beneath the 
very ramparts of Quebec. Finding their stone convents no longer 
enough protection, the Ursulines and the Hospital nuns fled into 
The anguish the city. Destruction seemed to- hang low over un- 
of Canada. happy Canada. Those who could returned to France, 
despairing of better days. Among those who remained a malig- 
nant fever broke out. Men imagined they saw in the skies 
strange portents, ominous of doom ; — blazing canoes, and men 
wresding with serpents. Their ears heard shrieks and lamenta- 
tions ; and in reading the chronicles of that day it seems to us 
as if the long anguish had warped the fibre of men's minds. 
D'Argenson, the governor, unable to look upon the misery which 
he had no power to relieve, demanded his recall. 

In this grievous time took place one of the most splendid epi- 
sodes in our history. Among the names of the heroes of Canada 
abides imperishably that of Daulac des Ormeaux, familiarly known 
The heroism ^^ DoUard. This young nobleman's name had suf- 
ofDoiiard. fered a stain in France. He came to Montreal in 
search of an opportunity for some deed that would wipe out the 
reproach. At length word reached the settlement that a great 
war party was on its way down the Ottawa to exterminate Ville- 
Marie. DoUard, with sixteen comrades, vowed to shatter the 
wave ere it broke on the city, and to restore respect for French 
valour. They took the sacrament together, and went forth to the 
fate of Thermopylae. Nor was this new Thermopylae less glorious 
than that immortal one of old. With a handful of Huron and 
Algonquin allies they ascended the Ottawa, and entrenched them- 
selves in the ruins of an old stockade at the pass of the Long Sault 
rapids. Seven hundred yeUing Iroquois swooped upon them, and 
were beaten back. Appalled at the terrific odds, most of Dol- 
lard's Indians forsook him. But one Algonquin chief, and a half- 
score of the more warhke Hurons, stood faithful. Men were these 



DISSENSIONS IN QUEBEC. 7 1 

savages, of the old, heroic pattern. For three days, — burning 
with thirst, for there was no spring in the fort, — fainting with 
hunger, for there was no time to eat, — gasping with exhaustion, 
for the foe allowed them no respite, these heroes held the pass ; 
and the bodies of the Iroquois were' piled so deep before them 
that the palisades ceased to be a shelter. Not till all were slain 
but five, and these five helpless with wounds, did the enemy win 
their way in. Of the five, four died at once ; and the last, having 
life enough left to make it worth while, was tortured. But the 
Iroquois had been taught a lesson. They slunk back to their 
lodges ; and Montreal drew breath awhile in peace. 

28. Dissensions in Quebec. The Great Earthquakes. — In 
the year that followed this deed of chivalry, the new governor, 
d'Avaugour, made a tour of Canada. D'Avaugour was Disputes 
full of energy, hot-tempered, and obstinate. Laval and bfshop^and*^ 
he, both dictatorial, soon quarrelled. Laval claimed *^® governor, 
precedence and authority in all things, as representing the supreme 
power of the Church. Such extravagant claims d'Avaugour was 
not the man to grant. At length, over the abuse of the liquor 
traffic, came an open rupture. For some years this traffic, so 
deadly to the Indians, had been allowed under severe limitations. 
Laval, alive to its iniquity, resolved to stamp it out. He got a 
law passed making it death to sell brandy to the Indians. As in 
Champlain's day, the traders were enraged at the interference. 
They could get more furs for their brandy than for the same value 
in any other article of trade. D'Avaugour enforced the law with 
military strictness. Two men were shot for transgressing it. At 
length a woman was caught in the same offence ; and she, too, 
was to suffer the same penalty. But the Jesuits demanded her 
pardon, and persisted till the governor lost all patience. He par- 
doned the woman ; but vowed at the same time that he would 

punish no more breaches of that law. At once the 

Laval goes 

settlement ran not. Brandy flowed everywhere. The back to 

Fremce. 

people, feehng themselves at last set free from the hard 

supervision of the Church, laughed at the bishop's thunders. 



72 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Quebec was divided into two camps ; and Laval, no longer able 
to make his influence felt, carried home his complaint to the King. 
About this time Pierre Boucher was sent to France (October, 
1661) to make known the desperate condition of the colony, and 
to appeal for aid. In the following year he addressed to Colbert 
a letter describing the resources, population, and needs 

£0UC£16r s 

report to of Canada. The French in all Canada numbered a 

Colbert. 

little over two thousand souls, a third of whom were 

in Quebec itself. The climate and products of the country were 
extolled. It was shown how many had amassed wealth in the 
colony, afterwards going home to France to spend it. The one 
thing needed, in Boucher's view, was a regiment of skilled soldiers 
to bring the Iroquois under subjection. This letter bore fruit. 
It turned the eyes of France seriously upon Canadian affairs. It 
The New was seen that the Company of the Hundred Associates 
chSter"^^'^ had neglected its duty shamefully, had concerned 
revoked. -^^^^^^ altogether with the profits of the fur-trade, and 

had utterly failed to fulfil the terms of its charter. The charter 
was therefore revoked by royal edict (1663). A certain Mon- 
sieur Dumont was sent to Canada to examine into affairs ; and 
with him went a hundred soldiers and some two hundred 
colonists. 

The year that saw the revocation of the charter, saw Canada 
shaken by a series of earthquakes. The disturbances began in 
February. Their centre seemed to be the Laurentide hill region 
The great north of the St. Lawrence, and the shocks were most 
earthquakes, frequent and violent about the weird Saguenay dis- 
trict ; but they extended all the way south into New England. 
The ice in the rivers, at that time three or four feet thick, was 
crumbled into fragments. At Tadousac fell an inch of volcanic 
ash ; and smoke-clouds belched from the river before Quebec. 
Gusts of hot air melted the midwinter snow. The earth uttered 
monstrous noises, now booming like artillery, now crackling and 
rattling like musket fire, now roaring like an incoming tide. The 
soil undulated, bells rang, chimneys fell, walls were rent apart, 



THE GREAT EARTHQUAKES. -JT^ 

and strange meteors shot across the sky. In the valley of the 
St. Maurice, above Three Rivers, mountains fell into the channel 
and the courses of streams were changed. The shore of the St. 
Lawrence itself, from Cape Tourmente down to Tadousac, was 
much altered. At a spot ever since called Les Eboulements, 
near Bay St. Paul, a high promontory nearly a mile in extent was 
hurled from its base, to form a new island in the river. Men 
sickened with superstitious fear. All through that summer 
exhalations of poisonous gas reeked from the ground. And it 
was not till autumn that the vexed earth recovered her calm. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SECTIONS : — 29, THE Sovereign Council ; and Land-holding 
IN Canada. 30, Talon comes to Canada. The English 
SEIZE New York. 31, de Tracy comes to Canada, and the 
Iroquois are chastised. 32, New France reaches out to 
the Mississippi and Hudson Bay, and secures her Hold 
upon Lake Ontario. 

29, The Sovereign Council ; and Land-holding in Canada. — 
Canada was now made a royal province under the direct rule of 
The Sover- the King, who deputed his authority to a committee of 
eign Council, ^j^j-gg known as the Sovereign Council. A royal com- 
mission was sent out to receive the oath of allegiance for the King, 
and to make new regulations for the administration of justice. 
With him, besides a hundred famihes of settlers, came de Mesy, 
the new governor-general, and Laval, the ecclesiastical superior. 
The sovereign council was composed of the governor-general, 
the ecclesiastical superior or bishop,^ and the intendant, who 
had power to add to their number by appointing four councillors, 
a chief clerk, and an attorney-general. The number of these 
additional councillors was afterwards increased to twelve. The 
intendant came to Quebec on the return of the royal commis- 
sioner to France. The first to hold this office was the sagacious 
and patriotic Talon. 

To the governor, as the King's representative, belonged the 
charge of all military matters, the power of war and peace. The 
bishop was supreme in matters belonging purely to the Church. 

1 Quebec was made a bishopric in 1674, and Laval appointed to the see. It_ 
was as titular bishop of Petrasa, and vicar apostolic of the Pope, that he had 
come to Quebec in 1659. 

74 



FEUDAL TENURE OF LAND. 75 

The intendant, though ranking below the other two, had in some 
respects a greater power and responsibihty. As president of the 
council he held the right to a casting vote : and in his ^^ ^. . . 

° o ;- -pjjg division 

direct control were all civil affairs, such as police, trade, of authority 

in Quebec, 
and administration of justice. The sovereign council 

itself constituted the Supreme Court of the colony ; and inferior 

courts were established at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. 

The lands of Canada were held in feudal tenure ; which means 

that the King is regarded as the owner, and that rent is paid to 

him not in money but in military services. Large ^ \ ,^ 

J J ° Feudal Ten- 
estates were granted on this " tenure of fealty and ure of lands 
° . . in Canada. 

homage " to officers and nobles, or to organizations 
like the Seminary of St. Sulpicius. An important and imposing 
ceremony was that at which the lords of manors annually did 
homage to the King's representative at Quebec. These seigneurs, 
as they were called, had great powers within their own domains. 
They were allowed to try and punish all misdemeanours less grave 
than murder or treason. The seigneurs subdivided their vast 
estates into small holdings, which they let to cultivators of the 
soil for a small annual rental. These small holders, called censi- 
tah-es, became the retainers of their seigneur, depend- seigneursand 
ent^on him for protection, and compelled to do him ^ensitaires. 
mihtary service. They had to grind their grain at the seigneur's 
mill, and pay him a fourteenth of the product. If lands were 
sold from one censitaire to another, the seigneur was entitled to a 
twelfth of the price ; —just as the King was entitled to a fifth of the 
purchase-money if the seigneur sold any portion of his seigneurie. 
These laws in later days led to troublesome consequences. 

The results of the laws of inheritance at this time established 
may even now be seen along the St. Lawrence valley. In some 
districts the farms are but narrow ribbons of territory, ^aw of in- 
a few yards wide on the river frorit, and running back ^^"t^'ice. 
perhaps a mile. The law required both seigneurs and censitaires 
to leave their estates fairly divided among their children, a some- 
what larger share, with the title and manor-house, going to the 



76 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

eldest son. As large families soon came to be the rule in Canada^ 
estates grew small by ceaseless subdivision. The dividing lines, 
naturally, were run at right angles to the river, in order that all 
might have an equal share in the advantages of a water-front. A 
few small properties were held direct from the king, en franc alleu 
as the term went. But these were inconsiderable in number, and 
their proprietors had not the privileges or rank of the seigneurs.^ 

30. Talon comes to Canada. The English seize New York. — 
Fortunately for Canada, the large-minded Colbert was now in 
charge of financial affairs in France. The King, Louis XIV, had 
made him comptroller-general of the finances, at the recommen- 
Coibert dation of Richelieu's powerful successor, Cardinal 

Sfe welffn- Mazarin. Colbert realized that a new order of things 
dia Company. -^yQ^i^j soon prevail, under which the power and pres- 
tige of European states would come to depend more largely 
on their colonial possessions. He saw that colonization and 
commerce went hand-in-hand. For the post of intendant at 
Quebec he chose Monsieur Talon, a man much like himself for 
breadth of view, diligent patriotism, and freedom fi-om dogmatic 
prejudice. At the same time (1664) the West India Company 
was formed, with all the trading privileges of Canada and Acadie, 
of the French colonies in Florida, Africa, South America, and of 
the' West Indies. This company was under the same pledges in 
regard to colonizing the land and converting the natives as those 
which its predecessor, the New Company of the Hundred As- 
sociates, had so lamentably failed to perform. The monopoly of 
the fur-trade thus granted to the W^est India Company excited 
vehement protest in Canada, where all the colonists were more or 
less interested in that profitable pursuit. A few years later, on 
Talon's urgent plea to Colbert, these restrictions were removed as 
far as Canada was concerned, the company being compensated by 
a fourth of all the beaver skins and a twelfth of all the buffalo 
skins exported. The West India Company proved, however, of 

1 It was not till 1855 that the seigneuries were abolished, the seigneurs receiving ' 
from the provincial government compensation for their ancient privileges. 



RIVALRY OVER THE FUR-TRADE. 77 

no more benefit to the colonies than the New Company had 

been, and m 1674 its charter was revoked. 

One year after the estabhshment of the sovereign council an 

event took place far to the south, on Manhattan Island at the mouth 

of the Hudson River, which was destined to influence the destinies 

of Canada. Charles II, claiminsf all the Atlantic coast 

New Amster- 
southward to Florida, granted the Dutch settlements dam becomes 

New York. 

of the New Netherlands to his brother James, Duke of 
York. Though England and Holland were then at peace, four 
English ships presently appeared at New Amsterdam, and de- 
manded its surrender. The doughty old Dutch governor, Stuyve- 
sant, was for fight ; but the less warhke citizens persuaded him to 
accept the mild terms of the English captain — and New Amster- 
dam became New York. The Dutch settlers were secured in the 
possession of their own property, their own worship, their own 
laws ; and they became full English citizens. 

The English government of New York at once entered into 
treaty with the Iroquois, and all the cantons of the Five Nations 

placed themselves under the protection of England's 

^ . ^ , ° The English 

King. This alhance was a boon to the English colo- and the iro- 

. T , quois. 

mes, and m later days a sleepless menace to the 
French. The shrewd savages saw the strength of their own posi- 
tion between the two great rival races ; and skilfully they main- 
tained it. Though they kept their treaty faithfully, in the main, 
yet on several occasions, by withholding their help from the Eng- 
lish, they saved French power from being crushed. They realized 
that their importance to the Enghsh depended on the existence 
of a French Canada. 

With the presence of the new power on the Hudson there grew 
up a bitter rivalry between the French and English over the fur- 
trade. The great duel for New World empire took Rivalry over 
the ignobl^ disguise of a quarrel about beaver skins, tiie fur-trade. 
The English sought to divert the fur-trade from the St. Lawrence 
route to the Hudson ; and the Iroquois mightily seconded their 
efforts. To all the northern and western tribes who would con- 



y8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

sent to bring their furs down the Hudson, the Iroquois turned 
friendly and buried their hatchets deep. Against the tribes who 
persisted in trading with the French, on the other hand, these 
shrewd, red schemers made relentless war. The English, more- 
over, offered higher prices than the French, and gave better goods 
in exchange, till even those half-wild Frenchmen, the Com-eurs 
des Bois^ at times sought the more profitable English markets. 
By these means Canadian trade was much damaged ; and a 
hatred arose between the rival colonies which was later to bring 
ruin upon many a border settlement. 

To add to the vexation of these outside quarrels, there was dis- 
cord within the walls of Quebec itself. Laval and the governor. 
Discord in ^e M6sy, were at strife over questions of authority 
Quebec. ^^^ precedence. It was not long before Laval was 

petitioning for de M^sy's recall, as he had for the recall of the 
two former governors. It was clear that nothing short of the 
completest subserviency could satisfy the demands of this devoted 
but domineering bishop. Before Laval could bring about the 
recall of his opponent, however, de Mesy died ; and the Seigneur 
de Courcelles was apjJbinted in his stead. 

31. De Tracy comes to Canada, and the Iroquois are chas- 
tised. — While the quarrel between de Mesy and Lav^al was at its 
height, the Marquis de Tracy was sent out as the 

De Tracy, o ' ^ ^ 

and the regi- King's viceroy. His mission was to settle all troubles 
Carignan- in Canada and the West Indies, and to subdue the 
Iroquois. In 1665 de Tracy landed at Quebec, bring- 
ing with him not only a number of new colonists, but also the 
famous regiment of Carignan-Salieres. Quebec was gay with mili- 
tary pomp. De Tracy lost no time. Three forts, St. Th^rese, Sorel,- 

1 The Coureurs des Bois, or Runners of the Woods, were Frenchmen who, 
breaking away from the restraint of civilized life, had gone to live w^h the Indians, 
to share their freedom, to explore the wilderness, and to follow the fur-trade with- 
out restriction. This lawless life proved so attractive that much of the vigorous 
youth of Canada was led into it. 

2 This was the fort built in 1642, and afterwards abandoned. Now M. de Sorel- 
reconstructed it ; and from him it took its name. 



JESUITS SPREAD THEIR INFLUENCE. 79 

and Chambly, intended to hold back the Iroquois, were built 
at strategic points on the Richelieu. When report went abroad 
of the power and invincible courage of the French troops the 
Iroquois were deeply impressed. Four of the Five Nations at 
once sent deputies to sue for peace. But the Mohawks, fiercest 
of the confederacy, remained defiant. A company sent out to 
scatter one of their war parties fell into an ambuscade, and was 
cut to pieces. 

In September of the following year de Tracy moved against 
the Mohawks. With him went the new governor, de Courcelles, 
a brave and capable leader, a prudent administrator, _, , ^. 

ir ^ r /pjjg chastise- 

to whose memory New France owes much reverence, ment of the 

■' Mohawks. 

De Tracy's force, consisting of thirteen hundred men, 

with their aged but energetic commander borne on a litter in 

their midst (for he was sorely afflicted with gout), marched as 

if in an open country, with the pomp of drum and trumpet. 

This was not Indian warfare, and in later days would have brought 

certain destruction. The Mohawks, however, were daunted by the 

martial display, and fled from their towns at de Tracy's approach. 

Their lodges were burned to the ground ; their stores of corn, 

laid up in pits for the winter, were destroyed or carried away ; 

and the Mohawk country long remembered the visit of de Tracy, 

The lesson was not lost upon the other tribes of the Iroquois ; 

and Canada for more than twenty years had peace. 

The French missionaries now went freely among the Iroquois, 

made many converts, and gradually gained no small hold upon 

this haughty people. More daring than soldier or 

° ^ ^ . ^ ° . . The Jesuits 

trader, other priests penetrated the wild regions north spread their 

* . influence, 

of Lake Superior, and made French influence felt 

from the Illinois to Lake Winnipeg. A permanent Mission was 

established at Sault Ste. Marie, and another at Michilimackinac, 

on the northern point of the peninsula between Lakes Huron and 

Michigan. The regiment of Carignan-Salieres was now disbanded, 

its officers becoming seigneurs with large estates, and the privates 

censitaires on their seigneuries. The regiment was planted along 



8o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the Richelieu and the south shore of the St. Lawrence, right in 
the track of the Iroquois raids, to be the buhvark of Canada. 

Under the wise supervision of Talon, whose memory should 
be honoured from Ontario to the Gulf, the condition of the colony 
Talon's wise Swiftly improved. The farms yielded abundantly, and 
management, getders lived in much material comfort. Talon set 
those colonists who were safely established to the work of clearing 
lots and building cottages adjoining their own. These he held 
ready for the occupation of newer immigrants. He looked care- 
fully into the mineral resources of the country, and discovered the 
rich iron deposits of the Three Rivers district. Against the 
bishop and the Jesuits he had some complaints to make, because 
they obstructed his efforts to civilize the Christian Indians. 
Believing that the colony should not be wholly dependent on the 
Jesuits for its religious guidance, he procured from the King per- 
mission to bring back the RecoUets ; and in 1670 he reestabhshed 
four of the gray-gowned Fathers in their old monastery on the 
St. Charles. 

All through his administration Talon exerted himself to procure 

in France suitable wives for his colonists, and as many as twelve 

hundred girls were shipped to Canada between i66t; 

Importation o x-r j 

of wives for and 1670. These girls, as a rule, were selected with 
the colonists. , 

great care, and usually from the country rather than 

the city, country girls being found best adapted to the rough life 
of a new land. Each girl on her marriage — and the weddings 
took place in batches of thirties as soon as possible after the 
coming of each ship-load — received a generous dowry from the 
King, with which to begin her housekeeping. Young men refus- 
ing to marry were made to feel the royal displeasure, and were 
not allowed to hunt, fish, or trade. Under these conditions 
bachelorhood became inconvenient in Canada, and presently un- 
common. In the year 1667 an event took place which showed 
that the long-harassed land was passing into the humour of con- 
tent. The first ball on record in Canada was given in the city of 
Quebec, on the night of the 4th of February. 



VOYAGE OF MARQUETTE AND JOLLIET. 8 1 

32. New France reaches out to the Mississippi and Hudson Bay, 
and secures her Hold upon Lake Ontario. — In the year of the 
recall of the R^coUets, the governor sent out one Nicholas Perrot, 
a daring explorer much skilled in the Indian dialects, Nicholas Per- 
to gather the western tribes to a conference. Perrot western**^^ 
went through the Lake Superior region, and down *"^^^- 
Lake Michigan to the spot where now stands Chicago. This was 
the centre of the strong Miami tribe. Early in the next year a 
throng of delegates met at Sault Ste. Marie, where the King's 
commissioner explained to them that they were all taken under 
the royal protection. The whole Lake region was then formally 
annexed to France. On this expedition Perrot was told by the 
Indians of a vast river flowing southward, which they called 
M^chasebe or Mississippi, "The Father of Waters." The tidings 
impressed Talon. The untiring and unterrified priest, Father 
Marquette, and a merchant explorer named Jolliet, were promptly 
despatched to seek the mighty stream. Visions of Cathay still 
dazzled the imaginations of men ; and they thought this new 
river might prove the path thereto. 

The explorers, with a handful of followers, made their way to 

the north-west shores of Lake Michigan. In two canoes they 

ascended the Fox River to its source, made a portage 

. The voyage 

to the head waters of a tributary of the Wisconsin, of Marquette 

and Jolliet. 
paddled down with the current, and on June 17th, 

1673, came out on the ample breast of the Mississippi. For a 
month they descended the great water, passing the mouths of the 
Ilhnois, the Missouri, the Ohio, and were hospitably received by the 
tribes along the shore. At the mouth of the Ohio they met Ind- 
ians armed with muskets and wearing garments of cloth, which 
showed that they had been trading with the Enghsh settlements 
of the coast. At the mouth of the Arkansas the savages were 
hostile, and our little band of explorers had a half-hour of peril ; 
but the tact of Marquette and Jolhet melted this fierce mood into 
one of cordial welcome, and instead of slaughter came feastings 
and the pipe of peace. At this point, however, the explorers de- 



82 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

cided to turn back, hearing that the tribes below were dangerous. 
They had come to suspect that the river emptied into the (iulf 
of Mexico instead of the Pacific ; and they were not anxious to 
visit the Spanish settlements. The return voyage was made by 
ascending the Illinois River and crossing over to the waters of 
Lake Michigan ; and about the end of September they regained 
the Green Bay Mission whence they had made their start. Less 
than two years later Marquette died in the wilderness, worn out 
by his self-sacrificing toil. 

While Talon was extending his power westward, he was not 
unmindful of the north with its wealth of fish and furs. Li 1671 
Talon sends he sent a party under Father Albanel to seek Hudson 
po^ses^on of Bay by the way of the Saguenay. The party wintered 
Hudson Bay. -^ ^j^g Saguenay district, and then descended the River 
Nepiscaw from the mystic Lake Mistassinni, till they came out 
upon the vast northern sea. Here they convened representatives 
of many Hudson Bay tribes ; and Father Albanel, erecting a 
cross with the royal arms upon it, took formal possession of the 
country. 

While Talon was at this time the good genius of Canada, the 
colony was also fortunate in having de Courcelles for governor. 
De Courcelles cared little for the internal progress of Canada, but 
he cared greatly for her miUtary prestige. By his justice and his 
fearlessness he kept his Indians under control, and the Iroquois 
themselves were unwilling to join issue with him. But these war- 
like tribes were growing restless under the restraints of the unac- 
De Courcelles customed peace. De Courcelles decided on a step 
atcataracoui. y^\^^^ would give them something to think about, 
while at the same time making his grip upon them firmer. He 
invited the chiefs of all the cantons to smoke the pipe of peace 
with him at a place called Cataracoui, near the foot of Lake 
Ontario. There he flattered the envoys with his gifts and his 
gracious compliments, while impressing them with a sense of 
his invincible resolution. At length he announced to them his 
intention of building a fort at the place of conference, that 



DE COURCELLES AT CATARACOUI. 83 

the western members of their confederacy might the more 
easily trade with his people. Presented in this light, the plan 
was highly pleasing to the sachems ; but later, when war again 
broke out, they realized the significance and purpose of the fort 
at Cataracoui. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SECTIONS: — 33, Frontenac comes to Canada. La Salle. 
34, Frontenac's Recall ; and La Barre's Folly. 35, Denon- 

VILLE, DONGAN, AND THE IrOQUOIS. 36, KONDIARONK, "THE 

Rat," kills the Peace. The Lachine Massacre. 

33, Frontenac comes to Canada. La Salle. — De Courcelles 

having asked for release from his command, on account of broken 

health, he was succeeded by one whose strong figure 
Louis de ^ BO 

Buade, Count stands large and Splendid in our storv. Louis de Buade, 

of Frontenac. ^ .° r , 1 ■ 1 

Count of Frontenac, was a man of the highest courage, 
determination, and energy. To Canada he gave a whole-souled 
devotion. The Indians dreaded him profoundly ; while the cour- 
tesy of his bearing won their friendship. During his rule even 
the Iroquois were afraid to lift the hatchet. In matters of civil 
government Frontenac showed some serious defects ; but these 
cannot lessen the reverence due to his memory. He had that 
rash imperiousness which so often mars a forceful character. He 
could endure no opposition, no questioning of his judgment and 
authority. Soon after his arrival the sagacious Talon asked to be 
recalled. Doubtless he discerned this fault in Frontenac, and 
dreaded a conflict. With the new intendant, Duchesneau, the 
fiery governor was soon at swords' points ; and with Laval, no less 
dictatorial than himself, his quarrels grew to be an open scandal. 

The proposed building of a fort at Cataracoui met with Fronte- 
nac's fullest approval ; and as soon as possible after his coming he 
went in person to superintend the work. High in his favour stood 
one who sheds the rose-light of romance upon our pages, the gal- 
lant and adventurous La Salle. He had come to Canada some 

84 



FORT FRONTENAC. 85 

years before, filled with the old, alluring dream of a passage to 
Cathay. Partly to gratify his restlessness, partly to familiarize him- 
self with the habits and speech of the tribes whose help he would 
need, partly to gain by the fur-trade means to carry on his enter- 
prise, he had disappeared from civilization for a time and dwelt 
among the Indians. Had he been, indeed, a personage less dis- 
tinguished, he would undoubtedly have been called a Coureur des 
Bois. Soon after his arrival he discovered the Ohio River. From 
the Sulpicians, with whom he had strong influence, he obtained an 
estate at the west end of Montreal Island, where he planted a set- 
tlement. This settlement, probably in allusion to or in derision of 
his search for a passage to China, presently came to be known as 
Lachine. 

The fort at Cataracoui, henceforth known as Fort Frontenac, 
was granted to La Salle soon after its construction, he refunding 
to the governor its full cost. The grant conveyed also 
a large tract of land, with the usual responsibilities and de la saUe 
privileges. La Salle tore down the fort and raised a Fort Fronte- 

r rr-ii 1 1 • 1 T • ir • 1 nacandbuilds 

stronger one of stone. Ihen he busied himself with ships on the 
clearing lands and building small ships for the Lake 
trade. In 1679 he built a ship on Lake Erie, called the Gj'if- 
fin, in which he sailed to the Green Bay Mission on Lake Michi- 
gan. From that point he sent the ship back richly laden with furs. 
But she came not to her destination. The fate of the ill-starred 
craft and all her wealth remains a mystery. 

Wrapped up with that of La Salle is the name of his loyal com- 
rade and fellow-explorer, Henry de Tonti,^ who was his very right 
arm in all his greatest achievements. It was not till 1682 that 
La Salle was able to carry out his main purpose. Crossing over 
from the foot of Lake Michigan, he descended the current of the 
lUinois. Early in February his canoes came out on the Mississippi, 

1 Tonti, before coming to Canada, had lost a hand in battle. The place of the 
missing member was supplied by one of steel, which was always kept covered with 
a glove. The blows which Tonti, in time of need, could deliver with this iron 
hand, were a source of wondering awe to the Indians. 



86 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

and turned their yellow prows to the south. The tribes along 
the banks were sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile ; but in the 
latter case the broad stream gave him plenty of room to escape their 
arrows and their bullets. As the explorers slipped swiftly down 
He descends the tide they emerged from winter into spring, then 
sfppftoTtV ii^to the glow and luxuriance of summer. On the 
mouth. j.g^.|^ q£ March they reached the. Mississippi mouth. 

The country they had traversed was annexed to France in due 
form, under the musical name of Louisiana. The return voyage, 
against the stream, was difficult, and many delays were encount- 
ered ; so that it was not till the spring of 1683 that La Salle 
got back to Quebec. Thence, in the flush of his triumph, he 
went home to France, where the favours of the court 

He leads an ^ , . , , , . 

expedition to were heaped upon huTi. Under his leadership a strong 

the Missis- j. u 

sippi mouth expedition was sent out, sailing from Rochelle, to 
reach the Mississippi mouth by way of the sea and 
there establish a colony. But La Salle had miscalculated the 
posidon of the river, and he sailed his party some hundreds of 
miles beyond it. Deeply chagrined, he led a little band ashore, 
and started eastward to seek by land the object of his quest. Be- 
fore long he got involved in that pathless tangle of forest, swamp, 
and sluggish water-courses, which de Soto in an earlier day had 

found so fatal. In the heart of this dread wilder- 
His death. -r ^ ■,-, , ^ ■,-, •■■,■,■ ^ ■ r ^ • 

ness La Salle s followers mutinied, hating him for his 

stern discipline ; and the great explorer died miserably under their 
vindictive hands. 

34. Frontenac's Recall; and La Barre's Folly. — While La 
Salle was exploring the Mississippi, the old menace of the Iro- 
quois once more raised its head. The governor of New York 
was now one Colonel Dongan, an ambitious and rest- 

Dongan stirs . 

up the iro- less spirit, who strove to break up the peace between 
New France and the Five Nations. His immediate 
aim was to overreach his rivals in the fur- trade ; but he must be 
ere lited with taking wise alarm at the activity of French exr 
plorers and French missionaries in the west. All the tribes of 



FRONTENAC INTIMIDATES THE IROQUOIS. 8/ 

the Illinois were now in close alliance with the French. Trouble 
arose through the murder of a Seneca chief by an Illinois warrior. 
To avenge the wrong, all the Iroquois rose as one tribe, swearing 
to exterminate the whole Illinois people. At their first blow the 
valley of the lUinois River was laid waste, and its dwellers scat- 
tered to their remoter villages. Frontenac called for delegates 
of the Five Nations to meet him at Cataracoui, promising to 
secure them full restitution and a peaceable settlement of the 
quarrel. Acting under Dongan's advice, the Iroquois told Fron- 
tenac that if he wanted to see them he must come to them in 
their lodges. But this defiant attitude was one which they could 
not keep up with Frontenac, before whose imperious force their 

fierce hearts quailed. He said no more of restitution. 

^ Frontenac 

He spoke no longer of a settlement. But he sent queiisthem 

again, 
them a curt command to keep their hands off the 

Illinois and all the other western tribes. Further, he told them 
that if they had anything to say to him they would have to come 
to Montreal. The Iroquois weakened at once, not wanting Fron- 
tenac's heavy hand bi^ought down upon their villages. They held 
back the feet of the warriors that were to have gone against the 
Illinois ; and soon they sent an embassy to Montreal. A little 
later, in the same year, Frontenac's quarrels with the bishop 
and the Jesuits led to his recall ; and an old^ officer named La 
Barre, who had outlived his military vigour, was sent out to 
govern Canada. It was sending a child to do a strong man's 
task. 

La Barre had insight enough to see that Governor Dongan 
was backing the Iroquois ; and in asking the King for reinforce- 
ments he urged that the English court should be called upon to 
check New York's intrigues. Dongan got a reprimand from 
London ; and La Barre got two hundred soldiers from Paris. 
But the Iroquois, and in particular their most powerful tribe, 
the Senecas, were growing daily more insolent. It was as if 
they already felt the withdrawal of Frontenac's frown. La Barre 
anxiously noted their temper, and betrayed his weakness by over- 



88 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

tures of peace. He invited them again to Montreal, where he 

loaded their deputies with presents, and endured their arrogant 

avowal that they were going to blot out the Illinois. 

LaBarretnes ^ o o 

to conciliate By persuasion, instead of firm command, he got their 

them. 

promise that they would not attack the Hurons, 
Ottawas, and other northern tribes, or plunder the canoes of 
French traders. 

We can hardly credit La Barre with special loyalty to the 
Hurons and Ottawas ; but these tribes were necessary to the 
illicit fur-trade by which he was greedily enriching himself. At 
length he sent a trading party, with valuable merchandise, into 
the Illinois country, not only to buy furs of the Mississippi tribes 
but also to seize La Salle's fort of St. Louis. The Senecas at this 
same moment were again pursuing their bloody vengeance. Be- 
ing in a warlike mood, they were not particular as to whom they 
War with the Struck. They promptly fell upon La Barre's traders 
Senecas. ^^^ captured his merchandise. But the rash Senecas 

by this act had assailed the governor's pocket,- which was more 
sensitive than his honour. La Barre swore that they should feel 
the weight of his wrath. He raised a force of nine hundred men 
and led them to the land of the Senecas. On the south shore 
of Lake Ontario he encamped, and the little army, ill led and 
ill fed, shrank rapidly under the pangs of fever and famine.^ 

In thus attacking the Senecas, La Barre had attacked the 
whole confederacy ; and now from every village, even to the 
utmost borders of the Mohawk land, the Iroquois swarmed about 
him. The whole military force of Canada was represented by 
this wretched band on the Bay of Famine ; and it began to look 
as if at length the Iroquois would make good their old boast and 
sweep the French into the sea. But their policy said no. The 
shrewd savages had begun to feel a spirit of encroachment in 
the English. They felt that the English would grow too power- 



1 The place of this unhappy encampment was known thereafter as the Bay of 
Famine. 



DONG AN AND DENONVILLE. 89 

ful if the French were out of the way. Their forest statesmen 
understood the balance of power, and withheld their hatchets 
from La Barre's embarrassed followers. But their deputies went 
before him and talked to him with lordly scorn. They laughed 
at his tlireats and his demands, swore that they would not spare 
the Illinois while a man of them remained alive, and only agreed 
to a treaty with the French themselves on the con- ^^ ignoble 
dition that La Barre should at once withdraw his P^^*^^- 
troops. After concluding this wretched treaty La Barre was sum- 
moned back to France, and the Marquis de Denonville succeeded 
to his place. 

35. Denonville, Dongan, and the Iroquois. — Denonville found 
Canada in a fever of indignation over La Barre's folly, and in a 
fever of fear over the grim aspect of the Indian tribes. The 
northern allies of the French were beginning to long not only 
for peace with the Iroquois but for trade with the English. With 
Denonville came a new governor for Montreal, a brave soldier 
and politic ruler called de Callieres. In internal affairs Canada 
now enjoyed unwonted peace, for the governor, the intendant, 
the bishop, and the Jesuits all were of one mind. Soon after his 
coming Denonville concluded that before all things Denonville 
the Senecas must be humbled. He made urgent crush the 
appeal to France for more soldiers. These he got, s^^^^^^- 
but slowly ; and slowly his scheme ripened. Meanwhile, how- 
ever, he kept his purpose a secret even from his intimates at 
Quebec ; and toward the Iroquois he used a mixture of flattery 
and firmness, planning to ward off their attack until he should 
be in readiness for it. 

Between Denonville in Quebec and Dongan in New York now 
ensued a duel of intrigue, though their royal masters, Louis XIV 
of France and Tames II of England, were on terms 

Dongan' sin- 

of excellent good-will. Blind to the problems of fate trigues with 

1 XT -.TT 1 1 1 , , 1 , the Indians. 

in the New World, the two monarchs had made 

treaty of neutrality, fixing perpetual peace between their North 

American possessions. But other eyes had a clearer view than 



90 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

theirs. The strife was for the mastery of the west. The far- 
seeing Dongan used his utmost art — flattering chiefs, bribing 
Coweurs des Bois, paying high prices, and bartering with good 
merchandise — to turn the trade of the northern and western 
Indians from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson. The rivalry be- 
tween these two trade routes is active and undecided to this 
day. Dongan sent his traders into the land beyond the Lakes, 
where hitherto had gone no white man but the French. They 
won a cordial welcome from the Indians ; and to counteract their 
influence, to keep the fur-trade from turning its full stream toward 
New York, required the utmost efforts of men like Duluth and 
Perrot, whom the tribes loved much and feared more. 

Dongan's policy was to coop the French hard and fast 'in the 
valley of the St. Lawrence ; a policy which was being well sec- 
The policy of onded by the raids of the New Englanders on Acadia, 
and^thr'^'^^' a"d by the planting of English posts on Hudson Bay. 
EngifshVoio- The policy of the French — which de Courcelles, 
nies. Talon, Frontenac, La Salle, Denonville, all more or 

less consciously strove to follow — was to enclose the English 
settlements in a vast sphere of French influence, leaving them 
none of the continent but that strip of Atlantic coast on which 
they had already taken root. Denonville, in spite of the treaty, 
sent a force up suddenly to Hudson's Bay, and surprised three 
English forts ^ in that region. This expedition was commanded 
by the Chevalier de Troyes, of Montreal, under whom went one 
who afterwards made his mark in Canadian history, the intrepid 
d'lberville. 

To both Denonville and Dongan now occurred the idea that a 
fort at Niagara would give an immense advantage to whichever 
The Niagara ^ide should succeed in placing it there. Both began 
region. scheming to that end. As the desired site was in the 

land of the Senecas, the opinion of that unbending people had to 
be considered. While New York and Quebec were thus pitted 

1 Forts Albany, Hayes, and Rupert. This attack was in the interests of the ' 
" Company of the North," established to rival the " Company of Hudson Bay." 



THE SENEGAS CHASTISED. 



91 



against each other in the continental duel, the powerful New 
England colonies looked on with small concern. Even so early 
as 1680 did Boston lack interest in New York. 

In 1687 Denonville deemed the time ripe for bringing the 
Senecas to their knees. He mustered swiftly a strong force and 
moved up the St. Lawrence. Then he committed a Denonviiie's 
treachery only to be matched by that of Charnisay, t^'^^chery. 
— an act so base that we cease to be astonished at the later bar- 
barities of the Iroquois. He invited a number of chiefs to a 
conference at Fort Frontenac. As soon as he got them within 
his walls he seized them, and sent them to France as slaves to 
be worked to death in the King's galleys. To swell the number 
of these unfortunates he went on to ravage two villages of neutral 
Iroquois, who had long been thriving peacefully in the neighbour- 
hood of Fort Frontenac. This act, in its brutaUty, was much like 
the raids of the African slave-hunter, save that the women and 
children thus captured — at least such of them as did not die of 
fear and pestilence in their crowded quarters — were christianized, 
and distributed among the Mission villages. 

This memorable deed achieved, Denonville darted across the 
lake to surprise the Senecas. He was unexpectedly reinforced by 
a large body of Coureiirs des Bois, Hurons, Ottawas, The senecas 
and other northern Indians, gathered by Duluth and •^'i^stised. 
Durantaye and brought down in haste from MichiUmackinac. The 
Senecas made a brief but fierce resistance in front of their chief 
town, and then scattered to the forests. All their towns were laid 
in ashes, their stores of corn and droves of swine destroyed, and 
a blow was dealt them from which the tribe never quite recovered. 
Then Denonville marched to Niagara, built the long-proposed fort, 
and left therein a garrison of one hundred men. 

Denonville had scored a triumph ; but now came upon the 
colony a season of anguish. Blazing with rage and iroquois 
hate at Denonviiie's treachery, and eager to avenge retaliation, 
the defeat of the Senecas, the whole confederacy of the Iroquois 
darted like wolves at the throat of Canada. They made no united 



92 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

movement, such as the disciplined force of the French might have 
beaten back ; but they hunted in small bands, swift and noiseless 
as shadows. They left behind them smoking ruins, and the 
charred bodies of their victims bound to stakes of torture. Every 
settlement was in a state of siege ; and men could move about 
only in strong bands armed to the teeth. Every seigneurial 
mansion was made a fortress, in which the retainers might take 
refuge with their families and possessions. To add to the misery 
of the time a plague of smallpox ran through the settlements, fatal 
as the Iroquois hatchet. 

Unable to protect the country against an enemy whom he could 
not bring to bay, Denonville now desired peace, and deputies were 
Negotiations invited to meet him in Montreal. But they had been 
for peace. ^^y^ taught by Dongan. They would have no talk of 
peace, save on condition that their stolen chiefs should be brought 
back and the fort at Niagara destroyed. Dongan's interference 
was now open. He justified it on the ground that all the Iroquois 
were under English protection, and that Denonville's attack on 
the Senecas was an invasion of English territory. Denonville sent 
away the delegates, refusing to treat with them on account of their 
arrogant bearing. Then, in a short time, the Iroquois grew tired 
of the war, probably fearing another French army among the 
lodges, or considering that it was time for them to discourage the 
pretensions of New York. They sent new delegates to Montreal, 
to treat with Denonville on his own terms. Pending a formal 
treaty a truce was agreed upon ; and the delegates, leaving 
hostages, returned to the council-fire of the five tribes. 

36. Kondiaronk, "the Rat," kills the Peace. The Lachine 
Massacre. — The proposed peace, though a boon to the French, 
The craft of meant ruin to the Hurons of Michilimackinac, who had 
Kondiaronk. ^XXx^A themselves with Denonville only on his pledge 
that there should be no peace till the Iroquois were crushed. The 
Hurons knew that Denonville could not protect them from the 
rage of the Iroquois. They were to be sacrificed. But one of 
their chiefs, known as Kondiaronk, or " the Rat," was a man of 



EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH PLANNED. 



93 



great capacity and resource. He resolved to make peace impos- 
sible. Lying in wait for the envoys, who were on their way to 
Montreal to sign the treaty, he fell upon them with his Hurons, 
killed one, and captured the rest, claiming that he was acting on 
Denonville's own orders. The envoys protested hotly against the 
outrage, declaring that they were accredited ambassadors on the 
way to conclude peace with the French. This tale Kondiaronk 
heard with assumed amazement ; and then, cursing Denonville for 
having led him into an act of such treachery, he loaded his pris- 
oners with gifts and set them free, retaining one of them to be 
adopted, as he said, in place of a Huron slain in the attack. 
Then he hastened home to Michilimackinac, only pausing at Fort 
Frontenac to puzzle the commander with these mysterious words 
— "I have killed the peace. We'll see how the governor is going 
to get out of this affair." At Michihmackinac no one knew of 
truce or proposed treaty, and to the French commander of the 
fort Kondiaronk handed over his Iroquois prisoner as a spy. The 
unhappy captive shouted his story, but it was not beheved ; and as 
a spy he was burned. Then Kondiaronk set free another Iroquois 
prisoner, bidding him go and show his people the treachery of the 
French. Thus the peace was well killed. In vain did Denonville 
explain and protest, for the villainy now laid to his charge was no 
more than that of which he had before been guilty. The Iroquois 
would not be duped again. Silently they brooded a hideous 
vengeance. 

Meanwhile Dongan had been recalled ; but his successor, 
Major Andros, though he sought to restrain the Iroquois from 
attacking Canada, was not less firm in his assertion of 

„ ,. , . J • 1 • J 1 r 1 1 Theexpulsion 

hnglish sovereignty, and in his demand for the destruc- of the English 

tion of Fort Niagara. To Denonville and to Callieres Denonville 

it now appeared that the only hope of peace lay in 

the expulsion of the English from the continent. They laid before 

the King a plan for the capture of New York and Albany. 

At last, after months of suspense, fell the stroke of Iroquois 

vengeance. This was the massacre of Lachine, the most appal- 



94 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



ling event in Canadian annals. On the night of August 4th, 
1689, under cover of storm and darkness, fifteen hundred Iro- 
The massacre quois Stole noiselessly into the village of Lachine, 
atLachine. ^^ j.j^g upper end of Montreal Island. Noiselessly 
they scattered among the dwellings. Then, with sudden wild 
screeches, they beat in door and window, and pounced upon the 
sleepers in their beds. Blessed were they who died thus in the 
first rage of the attack. Others — men, women, and children 
aUke — were dragged forth, tied to stakes, and tortured with 
unspeakable cruelties by the red glare of their blazing homes. 
The pen shrinks from relating the horrors of that night. Montreal 
was paralyzed with fear, and the hearts of men became like water. 
A body of two hundred troops, under an officer named Subercase, 
was encamped some miles from Lachine ; and as soon as the 
horrible tidings came this gallant leader marched against the 
butchers. But Denonville ordered him back within the walls of 
a strong outpost named Fort Roland. Fiercely protesting, he was 
forced to obey and leave the captives to their fate. Then the 
little garrison of Fort R^my, attempting to reach Fort Roland, 
was cut to pieces. In Montreal and Fort Roland there were 
troops enough to have crushed the enemy, but manhood seems 
to have fled from their leaders, the brave Subercase excepted. 
The Iroquois stayed upon the island just as long as it pleased 
them, and then marched off with their prisoners ; and from the 
walls of Montreal men watched their friends and kinsfolk borne 
away to a death of nameless agonies. 

Canada lay stricken faint with panic; and from her terror 
went up a prayer for the strong hand of Frontenac. Meanwhile 
The return James II had been driven from the throne of Eng- 
of Frontenac. j^^^^^^ ^^^^ -^^ ^a^ ?,\.t2id. reigned William of Orange, the 
mortal enemy of France. War had been declared between him 
and Louis. Denonville was recalled. And Frontenac, his faults 
forgotten in the face of the need that summoned him, was already 
on his way back to Canada (1689). 

Meanwhile what of Acadie, and what of Newfoundland? From 



AFFAIRS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. 



95 



the Treaty of Br^da in 1667 to the tune when Frontenac came 
back to save Canada, nearly a quarter of a century, was a period of 
little event in Acadian story. Governor succeeded Affairs in 
governor, and each in turn strove to make the most ■'^'^^'^i^- 
of his brief hour by ilhcit sale of brandy to the Indians and by 
a smuggling trade with the English. But population grew stead- 
ily though slowly, and spread to the fertile regions about the 
head of the Bay of Fundy. In 1671 Acadie had white inhabitants 
to the number of four hundred and forty-one, including the sol- 
diers on the Penobscot. It must be remembered that if Acadie's 
population was smaller, her territory was large, and took in a 
goodly extent of Maine. By 1685, however, the population had 
doubled, partly by immigration and partly by natural increase ; 
and thenceforth the settlements at Chignecto and Grand Yxt grew 
steadily, remote from the troubles of Port Royal, till the great ruin 
of a later century overtook them. The picturesque figure of this 
period is the brave but lawless wood-ranger, baron, lord of squaws, 
seigneur of savages, St. Castin, who dwelt in his strong post on the 
Penobscot and kept the gates of Acadie against the encroachments 
of New England. St. Castin had married a daughter of the great 
chief Matakando ; and his influence, backed by fear and sweet- 
ened by gifts, was felt in all the tribes of Acadie. 

As far as Newfoundland is concerned, all the half century pre- 
ceding the accession of William of Orange to the English throne 
(1689) is little more than a blank in her story. The great fish- 
merchants of the west of England held her in their selfish grasp ; 
and lest their fisheries should in some way be hindered, laws were 
passed forbidding settlement on the island. A resident popula- 
tion of one thousand in all, iust enough to look after 

. . ' -^ ^ Affairs in 

boats and gear m wmter, was the utmost that the fish- Newfound- 

land. 

ing-lords would allow ; and no one could build or even 
repair a house without a license from England. It is not strange 
that population grew slowly. The wonder is that any were found 
so bold or so obstinate as to force themselves in against so surly a 
reception. The main point of interest in this period is the begin- 



96 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ning of the French fisheries question. As early as 1635 the French 
got leave to dry fish on the Newfoundland shores, on a payment of 
five per cent, of the produce. Pushing this privilege to the utmost, 
they planted a strong and well-fortified colony at Placentia (1660). 
Fifteen years later they induced Charles II to remit the five per 
cent, payment. Then they reached out sturdily in every direction, 
till a large part of the island was in their hands. When at length 
King William made war on Louis XIV, the encroachment of France 
in Newfoundland was given as one of his reasons. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SECTIONS : — 37, Frontenac strikes the English Colonies. 
38, Phips at Port Royal and at Quebec. Madeleine de la 
Vercheres. Death of Frontenac. 39, d'Iberville in Hud- 
son Bay, Acadie, and Newfoundland. 40, War of the Span- 
ish Succession. Final Conquest of Acadie. 41, Repose, 
Progress, and Western Expansion. 

37. Frontenac strikes the English Colonies. — The great 
Louis was now at the summit of his splendour ; and it seemed 
that in the New World only was his word not law. combined 
There the rude English thwarted his plans, there the New^Yo^rk 
presumptuous Iroquois slaughtered his people. He ^^^'^^°^^^- 
resolved to put into effect the scheme of Denonville and Calheres. 
He would do nothing less than uproot the New York colony. His 
purpose was a wholesale expatriation of the eighteen thousand 
Dutch and English settlers, in comparison with which the later 
expatriation of the Acadians by the English would appear quite 
insignificant. The scheme was daring j but the means which 
Louis provided for executing it were laughably insufficient. Two 
ships, bearing about sixteen hundred soldiers, were ordered to 
Chedabucto harbour, in Acadie, there to await instructions. 
Frontenac, immediately on his arrival at Quebec, was to organize 
a land-force, and invade New York by way of the Richelieu, send- 
ing word to the ships at Chedabucto when his army was ready to 
start, in order that the two forces might cooperate. But endless 
delays ensued in the fitting of the ships, and further delays from 
head-winds in crossing the ocean ; and when the ships reached 
H 97 



g8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Chedabucto the season was so far gone that Frontenac saw himself 
forced to give up the enterprise. 

Though lacking both troops and money, Frontenac put new life 

into Canadian hearts, and the Indians felt the firmness of his 

hand. He had brought back the Iroquois chiefs so 

Frontenac . 

resolves to basely kidnapped by Denonville ; and these, after 
English coio- winning by his kindness their fast friendship, he sent 
home loaded with gifts. But by this time so low had 
sunk the French prestige, and so diligent were the intrigues of the 
English traders, that all the northern and western tribes were on 
the point of making peace with the Iroquois, and going over in a 
body to the English. Frontenac saw that he must strike the Eng- 
lish at once, and strike hard enough to revive in Indian breasts 
the old terror of his name. In silent haste he organized three 
war-parties, made up of the fierce and hardy Canadian bush- 
rangers, and of Christian Indians from the missions. These he 
launched through the wilderness in the dead of winter, against the 
English borders. One band started from Quebec, one from Three 
Rivers, and one from Montreal. That from Montreal, after a 
march of terrible hardship under which less mighty sinews must 
The raid on have failed, drew near the village of Schenectady on 
Schenectady. ^^ Hudson. Its palisades were buried in snow-drifts, 
the gates stood open and unguarded, the villagers slept in what 
they deemed security. On a sudden the still and piercing cold of 
the midnight air was loud with war-whoops ; and the bewildered 
villagers awoke to find the knives of their enemies at their throats. 
The massacre was indescribable, and for a time the Christian 
Indians of the party committed their atrocities unchecked. Then 
the French interfered to save the poor remnant of the captives. 
A Mr. Glen, who in former days had treated with kindness such 
French prisoners as came in his way, was living across the river 
from Schenectady. He put his house in a state of defence and 
prepared to sell his life dearly ; but the French declared they 
were not his enemies, but his debtors. They not only protected his 
family and his property, but gave up to him such of the captives, 



SALMON FALLS AND CASCO BAY. 99 

with their possessions, as he claimed to be his kin. The Indians 
grambled that Glen's kinsfolk were astonishingly numerous. The 
French made no long stay at Schenectady, but hastened back to 
Montreal with the tidings of their feat. Of the other two parties, 
that from Three Rivers stole upon the sleeping village of Salmon 
Falls, in New Hampshire. The terrible scenes of Schenectady 
were repeated. Men and women, old and young, were butchered ; 
the settlement was laid in ashes ; and many poor wretches who 
escaped the hatchet were starved or frozen in the The raids on 
woods. Such prisoners as were taken here, however, andCasccf^^^ 
were guarded from the Indians, and sent in safety to ^^^" 
Quebec. Then the third party arrived, and the combined force 
moved down Casco Bay. Here they met a sharp resistance. For 
several days the New Englanders held out. When at last they 
surrendered the fort, it was upon honourable terms, and on solemn 
pledge of protection from the Indians. But with shameless bru- 
tality the pledge was broken. The captives were handed over 
to the scalping-knife and the stake ; while fort and village were 
levelled to the ground. The stain of this vile treachery must rest 
upon Portneuf, the chief in command of the united force. The 
Three Rivers party, under leadership of Hertel, had shown itself 
bloody in assault, indeed, but honourable in triumph (1690). 

Throughout Canada the effect of these blows was visible at 
once. The north-west tribes made haste to propitiate Frontenac, 
trembhng to see that his hand was heavy as of old. Success 
seemed all at once to fill the air. A band of Canadian rangers, 
after meeting and cutting to pieces a war-party of the Iroquois, 
brought down to Montreal a vast store of furs which had for three 
years been accumulating at Michihmackinac. They had been kept 
back by fear of the Iroquois. This arrival set flowing once more 
in Canada the long stagnant currents of trade ; and the people 
praised heaven for their strong-handed governor. But meanwliile 
the stricken colonies of New York and New England were aflame. 
The blows which they had suffered were not those of civilized war- 
fare. The atrocities committed at Casco, Salmon Falls, Schenec- 



lOO A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

tady, lighted in the hearts of the Enghsh colonists a thirst for 
vengeance never to be quenched as long as the flag of the lilies 
floated in New France. The fight for New World empire now 
became, not a contest of policy merely, but a death-grapple of 
mutual hate. 

38. Sir William Phips at Port Royal and at Quebec. Madeleine 
de la Vercheres. Death of Frontenac. — The .English colonies 
Sir William 110^^ appointed delegates to meet in convention at New 
ures Port*^' York and discuss the common peril. Finding that there 
Royal- -yvas no help just then to be got from Great Britain, 

New England and New York together resolved upon the conquest 
of Canada. First the New Englanders sent out a force to destroy 
the hornets' nest of Acadie, whence they had been stung so often. 
The expedition consisted of seven small vessels under Sir William 
Phips (1690). Port Royal was in no condition for defence, its 
ramparts were ruinous, its guns half dismounted ; but Menneval, 
the governor, put on so bold a face that Phips gave him honourable 
terms. When he saw, however, the weakness of the place, which 
he might have had for the taking, the very commercial New Eng- 
land captain felt that he had been cheated. On a flimsy pretext 
he pillaged fort and church, and carried off Menneval and his 
garrison as prisoners of war. Such of the private citizens as would 
take the oath of allegiance to England were left undisturbed. The 
rest were shamelessly plundered. But justice bids Canadians con- 
fess that there were no brutal atrocities, such as had stained the 
French attacks of the previous winter. On the return of Phips to 
Boston with his booty, a combined assault on Canada was organ- 
ized. The great colony of Massachusetts was to send a fleet 
against Quebec, while New York despatched an army to Montreal. 
Phips was put in charge of the fleet; while the land-force was led 
by Colonel Winthrop. 

The expedition against Montreal (1690) was unlucky from the 
beginning. Sickness broke out among the troops; the supply of 
canoes and food was insufficient ; the Iroquois failed to keep 
their promises of aid ; and the main body of the force got no 



PHI PS BEFORE QUEBEC. lOI 

further than Lake Champlain. A httle band of volunteers, how- 
ever, was allowed to go forward ; and the great enterprise at last 
fizzled out in a border raid on the village of La Prairie. „ ., 

° Failure of 

Frontenac was then at Montreal, dancing the war- wmthrop's 

. expedition 

dance with the Indians of Michiliniackinac. While he against 

1 ■ ■ 1 r 1 • 1 Montreal. 

was plannmg a sharp reprisal for this thrust, he got 
news which sent him in hot haste back to Quebec. De CalHeres, 
Montreal's brave governor, was bidden to follow with all his troops, 
and to muster the militia of the seigneuries on his way. The 
New England fleet was already at Tadousac. 

Quebec, since Frontenac's return, had had its defences much 
strengthened, particularly on the landward and weaker side. 
Now they were hastily reinforced with huge beams and casks full 
of stone. The batteries of the Upper Town and along the river's 
edge were made ready for action. About twenty-seven hundred 
regular troops and militia were gathered within the walls. The 
Beauport and Beaupr^ shores below the city, where the enemy might 
seek to land, were guarded by Canadian woodsmen. At dawn of 
an October morning, when all was in readiness, the hostile ships 
appeared, slowly rounding the green shores of Orleans Island. 

Sir William Phips had thirty-two vessels, large and small, and 
a force of about twenty-two hundred men. When he found him- 
self face to face with his heavy task, the stupendous pjjjpg before 
rock of Quebec with its ramparts and its batteries may Q"^^^'^- 
well have daunted his rough spirit. There was stir of military 
pomp in the city, and the Fleur de Lys flapped defiantly on the 
clear autumnal air. But if the New Englander felt any hesitation, 
it did not now appear. He sent a herald into the city to demand 
capitulation within an hour. Blindfolded, and by devious ways, 
the messenger was led up to Frontenac's chateau, where, in the 
midst of an imposing company, he delivered his curt message 
and laid his watch upon the table. But Quebec was not Port 
Royal. The French officers reddened angrily at the words of 
Phips, and fiery short was Frontenac's reply that his guns would 
give his answer. 



I02 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

After some delay the attack began. Major Walley, the second 
in command, with thirteen hundred men and some small field- 
pieces, courageously forced a landing on the Beauport shore, while 
the ships opened fire on the town. The plan was that this land- 
Phips force should assail the city in the rear under cover of 

aMQifeljec ^^ bombardment. But the raw New England troops, 
delivered. harassed ceaselessly by the nimble Indian skirmishers 
and opposed by a battalion of hardy Canadian veterans, were 
foiled in every attempt to cross the Charles. After three days of 
battle, half-starved and half-frozen, they sullenly retreated to their 
ships. They left five of their cannon stuck in the Beauport mud ; 
but they had acquitted themselves, as their enemies said, like men. 
As for the bombardment, it had proved innocent enough against 
the strong walls of the city; while the ships, on the other hand, 
had been riddled by the guns of the batteries. Phips realized, at 
last, the magnitude of his undertaking. He withdrew behind Isle 
d'0rl6ans to repair his battered hulls ; and then sailed back with 
his chagrin to Boston. By this defeat Massachusetts was over- 
whelmed in mortification and in debt ; but Canada held services 
of praise in all her churches, and dedicated a chapel to " Notre 
Dame de la Victoire." At the King's command a medal was 
struck bearing this inscription : — Francia in Nova Orbe Vic- 
TRix ; Kebeca Liberata A.D. MDCXC. 

For the next few years the history of Canada presents but a 
series of raids and counter-raids, together with bitter internal strife 
between Frontenac and his followers on the one side, the Bishop 
and the Jesuits on the other. In this quarrel the King was com- 
pelled to interfere ; and Frontenac appears to have had the best 
of it. Among the disasters of the period stands out the massacre of 

La Chesnave, wherein the inhabitants of a whole village 
The heroine -^ ' . , , ., . 

of laVer- were slain or taken captive by the Iroquois. Among 
cheres. 

the heroic deeds of the time shines that of Madeleine de 

la Vercheres. This girl of fourteen, daughter of the Seigneur de la 

Vercheres, dwelt in what has been called the " Castle Dangerous " 

of Canada, so exposed was it to Iroquois assault. One morning. 



DEATH OF FRONTENAC. IO3 

when her father was away at Quebec, her people out at labour in 
the fields, and she left in the fort with only two soldiers, her two 
younger brothers, and an old man of eighty for garrison, the 
Iroquois came. The men gave up in instant despair; but the 
heroic girl shamed and threatened them back to manhood. By 
a show of confidence she held the savages at bay till a few women 
from the fields gained the fort ; and she conducted the defence 
so tirelessly and shrewdly that for a week the enemy were foiled. 
She found no mean assistants in her two small brothers, twelve 
and ten years old, who handled their guns with wondrous skill and 
hardihood. Thus the exigencies of the time made heroes of our 
women and our children. When help arrived from Montreal, 
instead of smoking ruins and nameless horrors, they found the 
garrison safe and a girl of fourteen in command. 

In 1696 Frontenac led a strong force into the heart of the 
Iroquois country. These proudest of savages durst not face him 
in battle, but fled at his coming. He burned the chief towns of 
the Onondagas, including the great council-house of the whole 
confederacy ; and he devastated the land of the Oneidas. This 
energetic action steadied once more the ever-wavering tribes of 
north and west ; and it brought the Iroquois envoys to Quebec 
with prayers and wampum belts. While negotiations Death of 
of peace were dragging on, there came word that ^''o^ts'i^*^- 
England and France had settled their difficulties by the Treaty of 
Ryswick (1697). In November of the following year, dauntless 
and a ruler of men to the last, the old lion of Canada died (1698). 

39. D'Iberville in Hudson Bay, Acadie, and Newfoundland. — 
Before pursuing events across the threshold of the century, we 
must go back a few years and see what was being done in the 
Acadian land. Besides the great struggle over the Three centres 
possession of the Lakes and the Mississippi, in which North ^ ^^ 
Canada and New York engaged with so much heat, ^™^"''^- 
there were three other centres of strife in Nortb America. Amid 
the icy desolation of Hudson Bay, and about the austere coasts of 
Newfoundland, France and England were at each other's throats ; 



I04 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



while along between New England and Acadie was a line of blood 
and fire. 

On Hudson Bay, after the capture of the three forts, Hayes, 
Albany, and Rupert, as described in an earlier chapter, only the 
post of Fort Nelson remained to England. Late in the war the 
D'lberviuein valiant d'lberviUe, fresh from triumphs in Acadie and 
Hudson Bay. Newfoundland, entered Hudson Bay and met there 
three armed English merchantmen. These, after a hot fight, were 
captured; and soon afterwards Fort Nelson shared their fate. 
Thus all the Hudson Bay region was brought under the flag of 
the Bourbons, — but only to be handed back to England by the 
Treaty of Ryswick (1697). 

As for Acadie, she had long been neglected in favour of the 
St. Lawrence valley. Though desirable in herself, she was not con- 
sidered so vital a part of the edifice of French power 

Disputed . .^^ , , . ,, , . 

boundaries m America. Her borders were continually changing 
hands. The PVench claimed the line of the Kenne- 
bec as the western hmit of Acadie ; and near the mouth of this 
river stood the fort of Pemaquid, a bone of contention from its 
birth. The New Englanders claimed that Acadie's western bor- 
der was the river St. Croix, which now divides New Brunswick 
from Maine. If, however, Acadie was somewhat neglected by 
the government, she was by no means forgotten by the Church. 
Among the Abenakis of the Kennebec and Penobscot, the ]\Ieli- 
cites of the St. John, and the Micmacs of the peninsula, the 
influence of the missionaries dwelling among them was all but 
supreme. 

We have seen Phips capturing Port Royal in 1690, before his 
great repulse at Quebec. But though he took it, he could not hold 
it ; and soon after he left, the French resumed possession. The 
new governor, Villebon, to be safer from Massachusetts visitors,^ 

1 The remoteness of the Nashwaak Fort did not save it from attack. In the 
autumn of 1696 it received a visit from a Massachusetts force under Colonel Haw- 
thorne and old Ben Church, the scourge of the Canadian settlements. The New 
Englanders, however, were beaten off by Villebon and his Indian allies; and their 
sloops made all haste out of the river. 



WAJ? ON THE ACADIAN BORDER. 105 

removed his headquarters to the mouth of the Nashwaak stream, 
opposite the point now occupied by Fredericton (1692). Here 
he built a pahsaded fort, whence he directed the 

^ Border war- 

bloody raids of the Indians against the border settle- fare between 

Acadie and 

ment of New England. On these raids Baron St. Cas- NewEng- 

land. 

tin did deadly service. The defenceless villages of 
York and Oyster Bay were laid waste, their ruins reeking with the 
blood of women and children ; but at Wells the raiders were beaten 
off by a handful of settlers in a block house. These barbarities 
were regarded by Frontenac as a necessity, in order to hearten 
his Indian allies and prevent them going over to the Enghsh. It 
must be remembered, in explanation rather than excuse, that a 
vein of cruelty had been temporarily excited in the Canadians by 
the fiendish cruelties which they had themselves suffered from the 
Iroquois. To their captives, however, they were by no means 
cruel. They treated their prisoners so kindly that many of these 
were most reluctant to be ransomed or exchanged. 

In 1692 the New Englanders rebuilt Fort William Henry, at 
Pemaquid, which had been destroyed by the Indians. This 
time they made it a strong stone structure. It jutted out into 
the sea, and was a ceaseless threat to the Abenakis, cutting off 
their expeditions along the coast. A few years later the French 
sent d'lberville with two ships of war to reduce it. 

D'lberville 

DTberville sailed into the Bay of Fundy to take on destroys Fort 
board Villebon and his Indians. There he fell in with Henry at 
two English frigates and a Boston sloop, and a fierce 
but unequal battle took place. One of the English frigates was 
captured, when on the point of sinking under the enemy's heavy 
broadsides ; and the other two vessels escaped in the thick fog 
which had closed about the struggle. The victor then sailed on 
to Pemaquid, a swarm of St. Castin's Abenakis following in their 
canoes to aid in the destruction of the hated fort. When sum- 
moned to surrender, the commandant of Fort William Henry 
rephed with fine defiance ; but on St. Castin's hint that if his 
Indians should be enraged by a stubborn resistance he would not 



I06 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

be able to restrain them, the New Englander's valour weakened. 
On tasting the eifect of a few shells from d'Iberville's big guns, 
the remnant of it quite faded out, and the fort capitulated. D'lber- 
ville sent the prisoners away under guard, to protect them from 
the Indians, who hated the commandant, Chubb, for some past 
treacheries. The fort was levelled to the ground. 

After this triumph a daring scheme for the capture of Boston 
was elaborated, but it fell to pieces through various delays and 
D'Iberville's accident. D'Iberville, however, continued his exploits. 
Newfound- He sailed with his htde force to Newfoundland, where 
^^'^^' at this time (1696) the French had but one settlement, 

the strong, fortified colony of Placentia Bay. The English had a 
fort and settlement at St. John's, with undefended fishing hamlets 
along the shores, besides a fortified post at Bonavista. Acting 
with the governor of Placentia, one Brouillan by name, d'lber- 
ville took St. John's and laid it in ashes. Then, separating from 
Brouillan, he led his little band with great sufferings through the 
winter wilderness, and ravaged all the Enghsh settlements but 
Bonavista and Carbonear. He was making ready to complete 
the conquest, when with spring came orders for him to go to 
Hudson Bay. How he fared there we have seen in a former 
paragraph. Having achieved all these successes in the north, 
d'lberville-^ turned his invincible energies toward the south and 
founded for France the great colony of Louisiana. 

By the Treaty of Ryswick, in which William HI gained the 
formal recognition of Europe and the hopes of James II were 
The Treaty forever crushed, France and England restored to each 
of Ryswick. other all places taken in the war. As far as the colo- 
nies were concerned, these eight years of bloodshed had brouglit 
the question of New World empire no nearer a solution. They 



1 D'Iberville was a native Canadian, and of a true Canadian type. He was a 
son of Charles le Moyne of Montreal, a man distinguished for his bravery and for 
his services to Canada. The greatest of these services may be counted the gift 
of his eleven sons, ot whom d'Iberville was the greatest, but all were renowned. 
D'Iberville was born in Montreal in 1661, and died in Cuba, 1706. 



IVAI? OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. loy 

had well opened men's eyes, however, especially the eyes of the 

colonists themselves, to the real nature of the struggle and the 

real points at issue. There could now be no lasting peace till 

one side or the other should be acknowledged master of the 

continent. Soon after Frontenac's death his poHcy was seen 

triumphant. Callieres, his successor, concluded a lasting peace 

with the Iroquois, who never again gave any serious trouble. The 

tribes of north and south grew steady in their allegiance to France. 

All this was Frontenac's work, which Callieres but completed for 

him. 

40. War of the Spanish Succession, Final Conquest of 

Acadie. — The peace sealed by the Treaty of Ryswick lasted but 

five years. Then, in 1702, broke out the war known to history 

as the War of the Spanish Succession. France and ^^ „, 

^ The War of 

Spain fought against England, Austria, and Holland, the Spanish 

to decide what prince should sit on the Spanish throne. 
As far as France and England were concerned, this was really a 
colonial war. The question of supremacy in the New World was 
at issue. Louis XIV wished to put his grandson, PhiUp of Anjou, 
on the throne of Spain, in order that France might share in 
the huge trade monopoly of Spanish America, and that the two 
powers together might crush out the commercial life of the Eng- 
lish colonies, as well as the ocean trade of England herself. The 
war, therefore, was not a war of kings but a war of commerce. 
The question of the Spanish crown was a question of the English 
pocket. England and her allies resolved that not Philip, but the 
Austrian Archduke Charles, a prince hostile to Louis, should rule 
the destinies of Spain. The great battles which England's gen- 
eral, Marlborough, fought and won in Europe — Blenheim, Rami- 
lies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet — were battles for New World empire, 
just as much as if they had been fought on the St. Lawrence, 
the St. John, or the Hudson. 

In America, however, the struggle took the form of what the 
French called petite ,s;uerre, — a war of petty raids and surprises. 
French privateers scourged the English coast settlements, while 



I08 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the blustering old Puritan, Ben Church, with his fleet of Massa- 
chusetts whale-boats, harried the Acadian villages around the head 
Petty war- of the Bay of Fundy. The English colonies were 
*^''^- rapidly growing in wealth and population, but for lack 

of united action they were feeble in war. A scheme of union was 
proposed, and heartily approved by King William ; but the colo- 
nies, jealous and suspicious' of each other from the beginning, 
turned a deaf ear to it. /in Acadie the fort on the Nashwaak 
lost its importance, and Port Royal again became the capital. 
Early in this war Boston sent another fleet to capture Port Royal, 
hating it as the lair of the French privateers who marred her 
commerce ; but the attack was ignominiously beaten off. Mean- 
while the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who had succeeded Callieres as 
governor of Canada, despatched a war-party of French and Ind- 
ians under Hertel, who crept laboriously through the wilderness 
and fell upon the defenceless village of Haverhill on the Mer- 
rimac. The old story of ruthless massacre was repeated, women 
and children falling under the hatchet. Prisoners and booty in 
abundance were carried off to Quebec. 

This outrage stirred up the colonies to a fury which nothing 
less than the conquest of Canada would appease. As in former 

schemes, this was to be accomplished by two inva- 
Schemes 

and counter- sions at once. Quebec was to be assailed by water, 
schemes. 

and Montreal by land. When rumour of the scheme 

reached Canada, Vaudreuil set himself' to checkmate it by an inva- 
sion of New York. Scheme and counter-scheme alike came to 
nothing. The ships which were to have sailed from England for 
Quebec were turned at the last moment against the Spaniards. 
The army which should have taken Montreal got no further than 
Lake Champlain, where the Iroquois, pursuing their old policy, 
withdrew their support. An epidemic, also, weakened the troops, 
and robbed them of all heart. Vaudreuil's expedition fared no 
better, but melted away by desertion and disobedience before it 
came in sight of the English borders. 

But the colonies were now well aroused. In 1 709 an expedi- 



PORT ROYAL BECOMES ANNAPOLIS ROYAL. 



109 



tion under Colonel Nicholson, made up of English ships and 
colonial soldiers, was organized for the capture of Quebec. By 
the time it was ready winter was close at hand. It 
was too late to attempt Quebec, with the risk of being ^^es Port 
entrapped by the ice ; but Acadie lay within reach, ^names^ft 
Port Royal was now commanded by the brave Suber- Annapolis 
case ; but it was ill fortified, ill provisioned, and almost 
without ammunition. When Nicholson's swarm of ships appeared 
in the harbour, Subercase knew his plight was hopeless. But he 
put on a bold front, and resisted so hotly for a time that he got 
honourable terms for his half- starved garrison. With flying colours 
and the pomp of drums and bugles he marched his tattered troops 
out of the fort ; and Port Royal passed, this time finally, into the 
keeping of England. Nicholson changed its name to Annapolis 
Royal, in honour of Queen Anne. He repaired its defences, and 
left it with a strong garrison. On the heels of his departure came 
the fierce old woodsman, St. Castin, with the hordes of his Indians, 
and laid close siege to Annapolis Royal ; but the New Englanders 
came safely through this peril and at last the wearied Indians 
stole away. 

Having secured Acadie, Nicholson set his heart upon Quebec. 
England had scored such triumphs in Europe that she could now 
spare troops . for America. Seven of Marlborough's best regi-. 
ments, victors at Oudenarde and Ramilies, were sent 

1 ,^ , r>- T , XT.,1 1 , The failure of 

out under General Sir John Hill ; and the transports SirHoveden 

• • , • •■ , o . ^; Walker, 

containing them were convoyed by a fleet of fifteen 

war-ships under Admiral Sir Hoveden Walker. This great force 

gathered at Boston to perfect the plan of attack. As usual, an 

army for the capture of Montreal was organized on the Hudson. 

It looked as if the inevitable hour had at last come for New 

France ; but Vaudreuil strengthened the defences of Quebec, 

posted his veteran troops at Chambly to cover Montreal, and 

awaited the blow. The blow never fell. Admiral Walker was 

both obstinate and incompetent. The elements, moreover, fought 

against him. When at length he entered the St. Lawrence he 



no A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

laughed at the warnings of his pilot and led his fleet too near the 
northern shore. Among the fatal reefs and shoals of the Egg 
Islands, eight of his tall battle-ships were shattered ; and that 
desolate coast was sown thick with wreckage and the bodies of 
the drowned. Stunned by the calamity, Walker fled away to Eng- 
land with the fragments of his ill-starred force ; and every steeple 
in Canada rang with the joy of the great dehverance (1710). 

The land-force, under Nicholson, had left Albany some weeks 
after the sailing of Walker from Boston. The fatal news over- 
took it on Lake Champlain. There was nothing left for Nichol- 
The Treaty son to do but march ingloriously home again. Three 
of Utrecht. ^^^^^ ^^^^^ (1713) the Treaty of Utrecht brought 
peace, a peace which marked an enormous expansion of the 
power and glory of England. From Spain she wrested the 
Asiento Contract, which gave her a share in the vast traffic ^ of 
Spanish America. From France she forced the cession of 'Acadie, 
Newfoundland, Hudson Bay Territory, and the rich island of St 
Christopher in the West Indies. France retained in Acadie the 
island of Cape Breton (at that time called He Royale), the islands 
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (including what is now known as 
Prince Edward Island), and certain fishery rights along a part of 
the Newfoundland coast. At last Fate was beginning to show 
.which rival she would favour. 

41. Repose, Progress, and Westward Expansion. — Great 

Britain, never before so powerful, was now overtopping all her 

rivals in Europe, while in America she had made vast 
The position ^ 

of theantago- inroads upon the territory of New France. Even yet, 

nistsatthe ^ ^ 1 • , , r 

Treaty of however, one misfht have argued with show of reason 

Utrecht. , , ' r ^ ? , 1 ,• , • 

that the future of the contment would he rather \n 
the hands of France than of England. Cape Breton, the gate of 
the Gulf, was French. French were the two vast waterways, the 

1 The most lucrative portion of this was the slave trade. In entering upon this 
iniquitous trade, England, it must be remembered, was no worse than her neigh- 
bours. The eyes of tlie civilized world were not then opened to the wickedness of 
this crime against humanity. 



THE FOUNDING OF LOUISBURG. \\\ 

St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. French were those island 
oceans, the Great Lakes ; and to France lay open all the boundless 
possibilities of the west. The prospect was a fair one, and it is 
not strange if she strove by secret means to keep her hold on 
the hearts of the Acadians, trusting some day to win back their 
treasured peninsula. 

Early in the war a noted Canadian fighter and fur-trader, la 
Motte Cadillac, had established a fort at Detroit, on the waterway 

between Lakes Erie and Huron, thus completing the 

° Detroit, 

chain of French supremacy in the Lake region and se- 
curing the connection between the St. Lawrence and Mississippi 
routes. About this fort, an object of hatred to the English and to 
the tribes in alliance with them, surged for years an almost cease- 
less strife ; but the French held their own, and kept the highway 
open between Canada and Louisiana. For the rest of Canada, 
however, the Treaty of Utrecht began a long period of peaceful 
growth. Quebec at this date had some seven thousand inhabi- 
tants, Montreal three thousand, and all the rest of Canada about 
sixteen thousand. 

The French now set themselves to guard the entrance to the 
Gulf and secure their grip on Cape Breton. Thither were taken 

the inhabitants of the Placentia Bay settlement. On 

■' . The founding 

a safe and roomy haven, then known as English Har- of Louis- 

bour, they built the town of Louisburg. The story 

of Louisburg is a romance. In its fortifications, which were of 

vast extent and designed by Vauban, the most celebrated engineer 

of the day, neither money nor toil was spared. So mighty a 

stronghold was it made, that men knew it as the " Dunkirk ^ of 

America." Being the headquarters for French privateers in the 

Atlantic, it was a ceaseless threat to the EngHsh colonies; and its 

effect on Acadie was dangerous, for it supplied a market to the 



^ Dunkirk was a fortified seaport of immense strength on the north-east coast of 
France. After Louis XIV had improved its fortifications it was regarded as 
impregnable. 



112 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Acadians and kept them from peaceful acceptance of English rule. 
Seeing this great stronghold close at hand, they could not but 
think that all Acadie would be brought once more beneath the 
flag of France. 

During this period English colonization made no progress in 
Acadie, which remained practically a French province. The 
The Aca- English held Annapolis, formerly Port Royal, where, 
^^^^^- as in French days, the successive governors resided. 

They had also a fishing post at Canso, on the eastern extremity of 
the peninsula. The Acadians dwelt on the rich lands which they 
had diked in from the sea, having populous settlements on the 
Annapolis River, on the Basin of Minas, and on the isthmus 
connecting Nova Scotia with the mainland. These people, with 
the might of Louisburg in their view, steadily refused to take the 
oath of allegiance to the English Crown, unless with a reservation 
that they should never be called upon to fight against France. 
They professed to be strictly neutral ; but in reality, stirred up 
by emissaries from Quebec who strove to keep them faithful to 
French interests, they aided the hostile Indians and their country- 
men at Louisburg. About this time the fertile island of St. John 
(now the province of Prince Edward Island) began to be taken 
up by Acadian families who were unwilling to live beneath the 
English sway. 

In Canada there was steady progress under the long rule of 
Vaudreuil. The inhabitants cultivated flax and hemp, and were 
Growth of ^t length permitted to manufacture their own clothes 
Canada. ^^ ^j^^ coarser kind. Though the fur-trade was, as of 

old, the main support of the colony, yet greater attention began 
to be paid to the rich shore fisheries. Ship-building flourished, 
and a considerable traffic in lumber, fish-oil, and pork was opened 
up with the West Indies. But there was practically no immigra- 
tion to Canada, such as was filling up the English colonies ; and 
the population grew very sluggishly. The old rivalry between 
French and Enghsh remained as keen as ever, but it took forms 
of stratagem and policy rather than of bloodshed. Gaining 



VERENDRYE IN THE NORTH-WEST. 113 

through then- missionaries the good-will of the Senecas, the 

French again planted a fortified post at Niagara, on land which 

was claimed by New York as English territory. The governor of 

New York retorted by the erection of a fort at Oswego, which 

undid the advantages of the French post. 

On the death of Vaudreuil in 1725 the Marquis de Beauharnois 

was appointed governor. He turned his attention definitely to 

the purpose of fencing in the Enghsh colonies. He 

proposed that no English settler should be allowed to behind the 
^ ^ ° AUeghanies. 

plant his cabin beyond the AUeghanies. To prevent 

the spread of those tenacious pioneers further northward, Beau- 
harnois built a strong fort at the head of the narrows of Lake 
Champlain. This became the famous stronghold of Crown 
Point. 

But the most memorable achievement of this long peace in 
Canada was the opening of the far North-west by the Sieur de la 
Verendrye. In 1731 Verendrye started westward from Michili- 
mackinac with a party made up of his three sons, a bold Jesuit 
missionary, and a few picked Coureurs des Bois. The Indians 
had told him stories of the great Lake Ouinipon ; ^ and this water 
was the immediate object of his quest. By alternate paddling 
and portaging through that stern wilderness north-west of Lake 
Superior, he reached in the following summer a large 

lake which he called the Lake of the Woods. On and the great 

North-west, 
its shores he established the stockaded tradmg-post of 

Fort St. Charles, and here his party had a skirmish with those Iro- 
quois of the North-west, the Sioux, in which one of his sons was 
killed. From the Lake of the Woods they descended the wild 
current of the Winnipeg River till they reached the lake of their 
quest. Crossing its turbulent waters, Verendrye ascended Red 
River, and at its junction with the Assinaboine he built Fort 
Rouge, where now stands our western metropolis, the city of 
Winnipeg. Establishing their headquarters in these new regions, 

1 Winnipeg. 



114 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



Verendrye and his sons explored and built trading-posts in every 
direction, visiting Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegoosis, and as- 
cending the Saskatchewan to its Forks. In their footsteps fol- 
lowed other Canadian traders ; and great was the increase in the 
stream of furs that flowed through the trading-houses of Montreal 
and Quebec. At length in 1742, one of the younger Verendryes 
crossed over to the Missouri, pushed up its broad and tuibid 
flood, and on New Year's Day, 1743, had sight of the far-off, 
sky-piercing summits of the Rocky Mountains. Other Canadian 
explorers, pushing eagerly northward, discovered the Athabasca 
and then the Peace River, and at their junction built Fort Chip- 
pewyan. In the meanwhile, however, the unwonted peace had 
come to an end. France and England had again plunged into 
the struggle. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SECTIONS : — 42, the War of the Austrian Succession. 
Pepperell's Capture of Louisburg. 43, Louisburg re- 
stored TO France. Boundary Disputes. 44, the English 
Hold tightens on Nova Scotia. 45, Fall of Beausejour, 
and Expulsion of the Acadians. 46, the Struggle in the 
West. 

42. The War of the Austrian Succession. Pepperell's Capture 
of Louisburg. — This long peace, as far as Europe was concerned, 
had been the mere repose of exhaustion. When the nations had 
recovered, France and England only awaited an ex- causes of the 
cuse for flying again at each other's throats. Their '^^^' 
rivalry in the New World had been intensifying through the 
twenty-seven years of peace ; and a new jealousy was growing up 
between them on the thronged plains of India. The excuse for 
war was given by the death of the Emperor Charles VI, who left 
the throne of Austria to his daughter, Maria Theresa. The Salic 
Law, excluding women from the throne, governed in Austria ; but 
Charles had set it aside and obtained, by what is known to history 
as the Pragmatic Sanction, the assent of most of the European 
powers. Immediately after his death, however, France, Spain, 
and Bavaria sprang forward to drag down the new empress, and 
to place Charles Albert of Bavaria on the throne. England threw 
herself into the battle, as the champion of the young empress. 
This was chivalrous ; but it had a very practical basis, too, for 
France and Spain were planning to crush England's coloixies and 
to sweep English commerce off the sea. 



Il6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Presently the war broke out in Nova Scotia. The governor 
of Louisburg, judging the time ripe for the recapture of the penin- 
sula, sent a force of nearly a thousand men under 

DuVivier 

attacks du Vivier agamst Annapolis Royal. Canso was de- 

Annapolis. , , , . , 

stroyed on the way, and its people sent prisoners to 
Louisburg. Annapolis was weakly garrisoned, weakly fortified ; but 
its governor, Paul Mascarene, was indomitable. Harassed night 
and day he held the feeble post, not to be conquered by violence, 
not to be deceived by stratagem. At length du Vivier told him that 
a strong fleet was on its way from Louisburg, whose heavy guns 
would knock Annapolis down about his ears. If he would capitu- 
late at once, before the fleet's arrival, du Vivier offered hon- 
ourable terms. Upon this the Enghsh officers wished to yield, 
but Mascarene would not hear of it. On his refusal the baffled 
du Vivier marched his troops off" silently in the night. 

As a retort to this attack on Annapolis the New Englanders 
boldly resolved on capturing Louisburg. Governor Shirley of 
New England Massachusetts, who planned the audacious stroke, was 
capture of 3. lawyer. Li his ignorance of military matters he 
Louisburg. \\i\\e reahzed the gigantic task which he was undertak- 
ing. His ignorance was in this case an advantage, since Fortune 
smiled on his audacity. Shirley's plan rested upon swiftness of 
action. Louisburg must be taken before it could be reinforced. 
The lawyer governor showed fine powers of military organization. 
In haste a force of four thousand men was gathered, chiefly 
mechanics and farmers, with little discipline, but with vast enthusi- 
asm and courage. A small fleet was raised, and in an incredibly 
short time the expedition was under way. In command of it was 
William Pepperell, a man of excellent capacity and reputation, 
but with no experience as a soldier. He began his military life, 
indeed, as leader of this great and perilous enterprise. 

The expedition landed at Canso, and waited for the ice to clear 
away from the front of Louisburg. Here Pepperell was joined 
by four British battle-ships under Commodore Warren, who had 
been ordered to cooperate with the New England army. After 



LOUISE URG. 117 

consultation with Pepperell, Warren sailed off to blockade Louis- 
burg harbour. On April 29th, the ice having moved off the coast, 
Pepperell got his transports under way ; and a hun- peppereii 
dred sail, bending before a fair wind, sped along the fng a\^Gaba-" 
Cape Breton coast. Early next morning the astonished ™^ ^^y* 
sentries on the ramparts of Louisburg saw the strange fleet enter- 
ing Gabarus Bay, only five miles distant. There had been a ball 
the night before; and people had barely got to sleep ere the 
startling tidings aroused them. Bells pealed loud alarm ; the 
booming of cannon from the walls called in all hunting parties 
and stragglers ; and Duchambon, the governor, rushed out with a 
hundred and fifty men to dispute the enemy's landing. But the 
New Englanders went ashore with a dash that was irresistible, 
the handful of French were driven back upon the town, and before 
night the disembarkation of two thousand soldiers had been tri- 
umphantly accomplished. Pepperell's army was in camp before 
Louisburg. 

It must be remembered that Louisburg was so strongly fortified 
that a French officer had said it might be held by an army of 

women against any assault. It was built at the extrem- 

Louisburg. 
ity of a low, rocky ridge jutting out into the Atlantic 

between the harbour and Gabarus Bay. Behind it, on the land 
side, the ground was chiefly morass, most unfriendly to the pas- 
sage of troops and artillery. Strong batteries of heavy metal 
crowned both landward and seaward bastions. In the mouth of 
the harbour stood a powerful work known as the Island Battery ; 
and at the back of the inner basin frowned the guns of the Grand 
Battery. Within the city, under the brave and experienced 
Duchambon, stood at arms some thirteen hundred troops ; and 
outside lurked a strong party of French and Indians, recalled 
from a raid on Annapolis, and threatening the besiegers from the 
rear. 

The work of reducing this mighty stronghold, of conquering its 
veteran defenders, fell entirely upon the raw New England troops 
with their citizen captains. The fleet under Warren threw never 



Il8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

a shell into the town. But Warren did indispensable service by 
keeping the harbour blockaded, and by capturing a strong supply 
ship (the Vigilant, of 60 guns) which came to the relief of the 
city. The glory of the achievement, however, must rest with 
New England. 

As soon as his troops were landed, Pepperell began forcing his 
way across the morasses between Gabarus Bay and the walls, 
erecting batteries to pound ceaselessly on the ramparts and to 

drop a hail of shells into the streets. One of the har- 
The siege. 

bour defences, the exposed Grand Battery, was capt- 
ured at the very beginning, by a combination of daring and good 
luck ; and with disastrous effect its heavy guns were turned upon 
the city. The New Englanders built their batteries in such 
exposed positions that the work had to be done at night, in order 
to escape the point-blank volleys from the walls. To silence the 
Island Battery and let the fleet enter the harbour, an outwork 
was raised on Lighthouse Point, on the other side of the passage. 
At length, oh the landward side of the doomed fortress, the New 
England guns had been pushed up to within two hundred and 
fifty yards of the west gate. The desperate sallies of the besieged 
had been again and again hurled back. The walls began to 
crumble under the ceaseless cannonading. The heaviest bastions 
went to pieces. And the Island Battery was put to silence by the 
storm of shot from Lighthouse Point. 

Duchambon had defied the first summons to surrender. But 
when he learned of the capture of the Vigilant; when he looked 

on his decimated garrison and his shattered ram- 
The capture. 

parts ; when he saw the fleet with its five hundred guns 

making ready to sail in, and the tireless New Englanders forming 

column for assault, — then he raised the white flag and asked for 

terms. In acknowledgment of his brave defence he was allowed 

to march out his troops with the honours of war. 

On taking over the city Pepperell gave a banquet, whereat his 

officers fraternized pleasantly with their vanquished foes and the' 

chief citizens of Louisburg. Including the garrison, he found 



D'ANVILLE'S EXPEDITION. II9 

nearly 5000 people in the captured stronghold. These were sent 
to France. Pepperell and Warren were both rewarded, the one 
with a baronetcy, the other with the rank of admiral. New Eng- 
land rang with martial triumph ; but Canada staggered under the 
unlooked-for and deadly blow (1745). 

43. Louisburg restored to France. Boundary Disputes. — 
To France the loss of Louisburg was intolerable. A great force, 
under the Duke d'Anville, was speedily gathered at Rochelle — 
thirty-nine ships of war, with a swarm of transports „. , , 

J. 116 13. l6 01 

carrying some of the choicest regiments of France. d'Anviue's 
■^ " ° expedition. 

Louisburg and Nova Scotia were to be retaken, 

Boston ravaged, and all New England snatched from Enghsh 
hands. New England trembled at the tidings; and Canada sent 
a strong band of her wood-rangers down into Nova Scotia to 
cooperate with d'Anville on his coming. But Fortune had no 
favours for the unhappy d'Anville. Before he was clear of the 
French coast two of his ships were taken by Enghsh cruisers. 
A succession of storms scattered the fleet, so that when, after 
ruinous delays, he sailed into the rendezvous at Chebucto Bay 
with two ships, he found but one other awaiting him. His morti- 
fication' brought on a stroke of apoplexy, which soon proved 
fatal ; and fevers thinned the ranks of the troops. Presently 
Admiral d'Estournelle arrived with other ships, and took com- 
mand. But on him, too, Fate turned an angry face. He was 
stricken with insanity, and stabbed himself with his sword. The 
leadership now fell upon de la Jonquiere, a naval officer of dis- 
tinction who was on his way to Quebec to relieve the governor- 
general. Meanwhile a few more of the wandering vessels had 
come straggling into the rendezvous, and Jonquiere presently set out 
to take Annapolis. Ere he reached his destination a great storm 
blew up against him, once more scattering the fleet ; and the 
discouraged remnant sailed away to France. The Canadian land 
expedition, in the meantime, had achieved a victory ; but it was 
a victory after the old bloody fashion of the Indian wars. A 
company of New Englanders under Colonel Noble were in peace- 



I20 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ful occupation of Grand Pre settlement, when the Canadians burst 
upon them under cover of night and killed eighty of their num- 
ber in their beds. 

After the ignominious collapse of d'Anville's expedition, the 
most formidable that had ever sailed for America, France gath- 
ered her strength for another effort to recapture 
Fate of ' 

jonquiere's Louisburg. She sent out )'^et another armament, 
expedition. , t ■^ t^ t- • i 

under Jonquiere. But tate was on its track at 

once. Off Cape Finisterre, in the Bay of Biscay, it was met by 
an English fleet under the famous Anson, and utterly annihilated 
(1747). Among the prisoners was Jonquiere himself, once more 
balked in his effort to reach the governor's throne at Quebec. 

Soon after the battle of Finisterre peace was concluded by the 
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ( 1 748) . The other European powers 
which had been fighting were by this time tired of war ; but 
for France and England, both of whom now realized that the 
Treatyof Aix- Struggle was for nothing less than colonial empire and 
la-Chapeiie. ^^ commerce of the world, this peace was but a 
breathing spell. The key to the peace was Louisburg. That 
stronghold formed the chief point at issue between France and 
England. France was victorious in Europe, and in India she had 
snatched from English grasp the rich province of Madras ; but in 
America she had suffered a loss which counterbalanced all these 
gains. England, on the other hand, was embarrassed by civil war. 
Her energies were required at home to crush the rising of the 
Young Pretender.^ To regain Louisburg France was ready to 
give up not only Madras, but all that she had gained in Europe. 
Thus the remote Cape Breton stronghold bought for England an 
advantageous peace ; but the New Englanders, whose blood and 
treasure had won the prize, were filled with indignation. Their 
treasure, indeed, the mother country handed back to them ; but 
their other losses she could not restore. 



1 Prince Cliarles Edward Stuart, who was striving to overthrow the Gueiph 
dynasty and regain the English throne for the House of Stuart. 



C A LOR ON DE BIENVILLE'S LINE. 



121 



For eight years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748- 
1756) there was nominal peace between France and England. 
But in America the quarrel over boundaries went on Boundary 
as bitterly as ever, and there was scarcely even the ^isp"''^^^- 
pretence of peace along the disputed borders of Canada and 
Acadie. In India, too, the so-called peace had small effect ; for 
Clive and Dupleix, the opposing leaders, fought their wild battles 
just as heartily as if the governments employing them were at open 
war. In America the two chief centres of conflict were Nova 
Scotia and the Ohio valley. Acadie had, indeed, been ceded to 
England, but what Acadie meant had been left unsettled. That 
active soldier and acute statesman, de la Gallissonniere, who 
served as governor-general of Canada during the captivity of 
Jonquiere, maintained that in the act of cession Acadie meant 
only the peninsula of Nova Scotia ; and he strenuously asserted 
the claim of France to all that tract which now forms New Bruns- 
wick and eastern Maine. He kept up, in spite of English protest, 
his posts on the isthmus of Chignecto and on the St. John River. 
Along the line of the Alleghanies he proposed to settle ten thou- 
sand sturdy colonists from France, to stop the westward flow of 
the EngHsh \ but in this scheme King Louis would not support 
him, thinking that the late wars had sufficiently depopulated his 
kingdom. Foiled in his prudent purpose, he sent out one C^loron 

de Bienville to mark a boundary line. This marking 

° Celoron de 
was done by means of metal plates bearing the arms Bienville's 

of France, affixed to trees at certain intervals. At the 

foot of each of these trees was buried a leaden plate inscribed 

with a proclamation of ownership. The line was drawn all around 

the valley of the Ohio till it reached the Alleghanies. The first to 

feel its restrictions were the colonists of Pennsylvania, who were 

filled with wrath when the French notified them that west of the 

mountains they would not be permitted to trade. The Ohio 

valley at this time was a great resort of the English traders, and to 

expel them Fort Venango on the Alleghany River was built, soon 

after de Bienville's expedition. The whole question of the boun- 



122 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

dary was now referred to a board of French and English commis- 
sioners meeting at Paris. For three years, from 1750 to 1753, 
the problem was debated, and then the English members of the 
board withdrew from the vain dispute, doubtless considering that 
the sword would more speedily settle it. 

On the release of Jonquiere from his captivity in England he 
took his place as governor of Canada, displacing the brave Gal- 

lissonniere. With him began that reign of corrup- 
La Jonquiere, o o r 

and the tion which brought such shame on Canada and con- 

beginning of 
corruption in tributed SO mightily to the final overthrow of French 

Canada 

power on this continent. Avarice was Jonquiere's 
ruling passion, and by every kind of official corruption he sought 
to enrich himself. He defrauded Canada. He defrauded the 
King. The revenues from liquor licenses he appropriated, and 
sold these licenses to all who would pay for them, till drunkenness 
ran riot in the colony. He got funds to carry on explorations in 
the west, and used them, with huge profit, on mere fur-trading 
ventures. When at length the complaints of Canada won tardy 
attention in France, and he was called to account, the old miser 
died in time to escape the expenses of a trial. The Marquis du 
Quesne was made governor in his stead. But the example which 
he had set found able imitators, and Canada, as we shall see in a 
later chapter, fell a prey to a shameless band of official robbers. 

44. The English Hold tightens on Nova Scotia. — From the 
valley of the Ohio let us now turn to the far east and observe the 
Halifax Struggle in Nova Scotia. Here the English took two 

founded. ■^j\\_2\ steps toward securing their hold on the country. 

The first of these was the founding of Hahfax (1749). The 
second was what is known as the expulsion of the Acadians, 
about which historians and romancers have so bitterly disputed 

(1755)- 

Annapolis Royal was not held a fit place for the capital of 
Nova Scotia, and immediately after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 
it was resolved to build a city on the splendid harbour of Che- 
bucto. The importance of this site had long been recognized, as 



TFIE FOUNDING OF HALIFAX. 123 

is shown by the fact that it was usually chosen as the Atlantic 
rendezvous of great naval expeditions to the New World. The 
scheme was announced in London, and liberal offers were made 
to desirable settlers, such as retired officers, disbanded soldiers 
and sailors, mechanics, and cultivators of the soil. To all were 
offered free grants of land, arms, tools, and a year's provisions, 
with representative institutions such as they had at home. The 
proposed city was named Halifax,^ and the Hon. Edward Corn- 
wallis was made governor. The generous inducements offered 
by the King brought forward many willing emigrants, and on 
June 2 1 St (1749), the war-ship Sphinx, with Cornwallis on 
board, sailed into Chebucto harbour. She was followed by a 
fleet of thirteen transports ; and a population of two thousand 
five hundred souls set about the building of the city. All sum- 
mer rang the astonished wilderness with the din of hammer and 
axe, while the Indians looked on with hostile eyes ; and by autumn 
the infant city had three hundred houses to show, defended by a 
palisade and two forts. Meanwhile a party of soldiers had been 
sent to drive the French from the north shore of the Bay of 
Fundy ; and the Acadians had been called to a conference with 
Governor Cornwallis.. At this conference they were pressed to 
take the oath of allegiance. When they repeated their old 
refusal, they were warned very plainly that unless they changed 
their minds they would not be left much longer in possession of 
their lands. If they would not become loyal subjects of their 
new sovereign, King George, they were told that they would have 
to be treated as his enemies. Stubborn and unconvinced, the 
Acadians turned back muttering to their homes, and the growth 
of Halifax went on rapidly. Other settlers came, and built Dart- 
mouth on the opposite side of the harbour ; and the zealous 
efforts of the home government, now thoroughly alive to the 
importance of the colony, brought out a large band of thrifty Ger- 
man farmers. These pioneers of another speech went apart, and 

1 Named after the Earl of Halifax, President of the Board of Trade and Planta- 
tions, a body which had the supervision of colonial affairs. 



124 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

formed the settlement of Lunenburg on a fine harbour westward 
from Hahfax. 

The building of Halifax was a proclamation to France that 
Nova Scotia had passed out of her hands forever. Its effect was 
to make her the more eager for its recovery. From Quebec 
and from Louisburg every effort was now put forth to keep the 
Acadian farmers true to France. Many of the Acadian parish 
priests, refusing to lend themselves to political intrigue, coun- 
selled their flocks to be loyal to the government under which 
they were living. But others were less scrupulous, or else more 
zealous for France. Chief among these was the famous Abbe 

le Loutre, head of the Micmac mission at Shubena- 
LeLoutre. ,. , ^ _ , . , 

cadie. Le Loutre was a fierce partisan and a tireless 

political agent. In comparison with the corrupt officials who 
were now sapping the life-blood of Canada, he shines by the sin- 
cerity of his zeal. But he was ready to sacrifice others as mer- 
cilessly as himself in the cause of French dominion. His ideas 
of war were those which Canada and New England had learned 
from their struggles with the Indians, — they were those of am- 
buscade and midnight murder. Against the settlements of Hali- 
fax, Dartmouth, Lunenburg, the fierce Abb6 sent out his painted 
followers by stealth, and the old barbarisms ^ of border war were 
repeated. The Acadians feared him with good cause. Those 
whom he suspected of leaning to the English he brought back 
to their allegiance by grim threats. Great numbers he led out 
from their comfortable homes to endure bitter hardships on new 
lands north of the bay. To the French governor at Quebec his 
vigour and sleepless zeal were worth a regiment of veterans. And 
Governor Cornwallis offered a hundred pounds for his head.- 

1 Most conspicuous of these was what is known as the Dartmouth Massacre. 
One night, in the early spring of 1751, the Indians — accompanied, it is said, by 
certain Acadian wood-rangers in disguise — burst upon the infant village, scalped 
and slaughtered many settlers in their beds, and carried off others to captivit>'. 
The assailants escaped before the garrison of Halifax, aroused by the flames and 
cries, could come to the rescue. 

2 During this period of supposed peace, both French and English were paying 
a bounty on their enemies' scalps, as if on the snouts of wolves. 



THE FORTS ON THE MISSIGUASH. 125 

The line claimed by France as the boundary between Canada 

and Nova Scotia was the small tidal stream of the Missiguash, 

near the southern end of the isthmus of Chignecto. On 

° Fort Beause- 

a spur of upland just north of this stream the French jour and Fort 

Lawrence, 
raised a fort, at the building of which the unhappy 

Acadians of the isthmus had to labour half-starved while the money 
intended to pay them found its way into the pockets of official rob- 
bers. This post was called Beaus^jour ; and on the other side of the 
Missiguash, as a counter-check, the English built Fort Lawrence. 
Fort Lawrence stood on the site of the once prosperous Acadian 
village of Beaubassin, which le Loutre and his Indians had 
burned to prevent the villagers falling under British influence. 
The Indians fought savagely to prevent the landing of the English 
force when it came to found Fort Lawrence. But as the landing 
was south of the Missiguash, on acknowledged Enghsh territory, 
the French soldiers of Beaus^jour looked on without interfering. 
This forbearance, however, was not for long. Both sides strove 
to encroach ; and the turbid little stream dividing their thresholds 
ran redder than ever with the blood of ceaseless skirmishes. 

One deed of all that the shores of the Missiguash beheld stands 
out for its treachery. The commander of Fort Lawrence was a 

certain Captain Howe, who was winning great influ- 

^ ' ° ^ The murder 

ence among the Acadians and was therefore especially of captain 

, T ^ . , Howe, 

obnoxious to le Loutre. One mornmg the sentry on 

Fort Lawrence saw what he took to be a French officer from 

Beaus^jour, waving a flag of truce on the further bank of the 

stream. Howe, with a white flag and three or four men, at once 

came down to the shore to see what was wanted. The seeming 

officer, however, was one of the chiefs of the Shubenacadie Mic- 

macs, dressed in a French officer's uniform ; and hidden behind 

the dike lay an armed band of his followers. When the English 

came within easy range the savages sprang up, their muskets 

blazed across the tide, and Howe fell mortally wounded. At this 

villainy the French commandant, the fierce but soldierly la 

Come, was filled with indignant shame. He charged le Loutre 



126 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

with instigating it ; but the Abbe declared that his Indians had 

both planned it and carried it out without consulting him. 

45. Fall of Beausejour and Expulsion of the Acadians, — And 

now the days grew dark for the unhappy Acadians. A few, 

yielding to the English demands, had made oath of allegiance 

to King George. Others had striven to be neutral. Yet others, 

lending ear to le Loutre, had aided the marauding savages, and 

even ioined them in their raids. The French governor 
The dilemma ^ ° 

of the Aca- at Quebec now proclaimed that all the Acadians must 

dians. 

swear fealty to France and enroll themselves in the 
Canadian mihtia, on pain of fire and sword. Major Lawrence, then 
governor of Nova Scotia, issued a counter-proclamation, declaring 
that any Acadian who, after taking the oath of allegiance to King 
George, should be found fighting in the ranks of France, would be 
shot as a deserter. In such perilous dilemma did these unhappy 
people find themselves, when all they wanted was to be left alone. 
But inclination, fear of the Indians, and a too great confidence in 
English toleration misled the Acadians to their ruin. They lis- 
tened to Quebec rather than to Halifax; and they found the error 
fatal. 

Toward the close of 1754 the French planned an invasion of 

Nova Scotia, from Beausejour as a base of operations. Report 

of this reaching the English, Lawrence took counsel 

Capture of o o ? 

Beausejour with Shirley, the energetic governor of Massachusetts ; 

planned by .r> t, & , 

New Eng- and it was resolved to forestall the attack by capturing 
Beausejour and driving the French out of the isthmus. 
Both Shirley and Lawrence felt the need of swift action, for they 
knew that when the French troops entered Nova Scotia ten thou- 
sand Acadians would rise and flock to their banner. Their plans 
were perfected with secrecy and haste. A force of two thousand 
New Englanders, of the same raw but sturdy material as the con- 
querors of Louisburg, was gathered in Boston. An EngHsh officer, 
Colonel Monckton, was placed in command, with the New Eng- 
land colonel, Winslow, under him. On the first of June (1755) 
the fleet conveying the little army dropped anchor at the head of 



FALL OF BEAUS&JOUR. 12/ 

Chignecto Bay, before the bastions of Beaus^jour. The fort was 
then held by no such redoubtable commander as the brave la 
Come. It was governed by the corrupt and incompetent Vergor, 
placed there not to defend the honour of Canada but to defraud 
the King. On his cowardice the intrepid le Loutre, whom he 
feared, was able to exercise some check ; but his dishonesty was 
beyond the Abba's reach. He was a mere creature of Bigot, the 
intendant, of whose iniquities we shall read in a later paragraph. 

On news of the approach of the English ships, Vergor had 
summoned the Acadians of the surrounding country to the defence 
of Beaus^jour. There were nearly fifteen hundred of them in all. 
Three hundred he took into the fort to strengthen his garrison. 
The rest were sent into the woods, to harass the invaders with 
skirmishing and night attack. The New Englanders paUof 
landed without opposition, on the southern side of ^eausejour. 
the Missiguash, and were joined by the garrison of Fort Lawrence. 
After a sharp engagement they forced the passage of the Missi- 
guash. A strong position was occupied on the ridge about a 
mile and a half to the rear of Beausejour. After a few days of 
entrenching and reconnoitring the lines were pushed closer in, 
and some mortars were got into position. These hurled shell into 
the fort, and the French cannon answered hotly. As Beausejour 
was attacked on but one side, there was free communication 
between the fort and the surrounding country ; and on the arrival 
of news that no help could be expected from Louisburg, that 
city being strictly blockaded, many of the disheartened Acadians 
walked quietly out of the fort and off into the woods to rejoin 
their families. Presently, while the English were yet toiHng to 
get their siege-guns into position, the game was decided. A shell 
from an English mortar crashed through the vaulted ceiling of a 
casemate in Beausejour, and by its explosion killed a number of 
the officers who were sitting there at breakfast. The result was 
instantaneous. When he was not safe even in his casemates, 
what could the vahant Vergor do but capitulate ? In spite of the 
fierce protests of le Loutre and some of the officers, he hoisted 



128 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the flag of truce and gave up the fort. The garrison was allowed 
to march out with the honours of war, and was sent to Louisburg, 
under pledge that not for six months would they bear arms against 
the English. The Acadian prisoners were pardoned on the plea 
that they had fought under compulsion. Beaus^jour, becoming 
an English stronghold, was renamed Fort Cumberland. 

After the fall of Beaus^jour came that pathetic tragedy known 

as the expulsion of the Acadians. Up to the time of the attack 

on Beaus^iour those Acadians who had deserted their 

Removal of 

the Acadians homes' in Nova Scotia had been free to return and 
decided upon. ..,,,. 

resume possession of all their property, on the sole 

condition of allegiance. The Enghsh poUcy toward these people 
had been one of persistent forbearance and generosity. It was 
hoped that under such treatment they might become good sub- 
jects of the British Crown and bring their excellent virtues of 
industry and frugality to the building up of the province. They 
had been repeatedly invited to take the oath with the promise 
that they should not for the time be required to do military 
service. Under the long years of EngUsh rule they had prospered 
and multiplied, and unlike their brethren in Canada they had 
borne no burden of taxes. Doubtless if left to themselves they 
would have heartily accepted their new rulers, but the policy of 
France forbade that they should be left to themselves. In their 
simplicity they were good subjects for political intrigue to work 
with. Moved by persuasions, fervid appeals, terrifying threats, 
they became a menace to the English power, all the more 
dangerous because concealed. They were the enemy within 
the gates. While professing neutrality they lent ceaseless aid 
to Louisburg and Beaus^jour; and they hopefully awaited the 
day when they miglit once more serve their old flag. The Eng- 
hsh, after gaining Beaus^jour, could not spare enough troops to 
hold it if it was to remain girdled by a hostile population. Their 
long patience was by this time exhausted ; and if the step now 
decided upon seems to us a cruel one, we must remember to 
judge it by the standards of that day rather than of this. The 



THE EXPULSION OF THE ACADIANS. 129 

whole spirit of border warfare was merciless. It must be re- 
membered, too, that the argument of necessity is a strong one. 
The English had been slowly forced to the conclusion that Nova 
Scotia could not be made an English colony except by ridding it 
of its French population. When two foes like France and Eng- 
land were fighting for a continent, it was hardly to be supposed 
that either would forego a vast advantage on grounds of pure 
humanity. 

During the siege of Beaus^jour Governor Lawrence summoned 
deputies from all the great Acadian settlements at Minas, Grand 
Pre, and Annapolis, and once more urged them to take the oath. 
They obstinately refused. He warned them that the time was 
come when their decision must be final. They would have to 
choose, and at once, between allegiance and exile. With a few 
exceptions they turned a deaf ear to even this plain speaking. 
Thereupon they were dismissed, and went home in a Wind faith 
that France would succour them. The few who had taken the 
oath were secured in their possessions ; and the stern decree of 
exile went forth against the rest. 

The preparations for carrying this decree into effect went on 
swiftly and secretly. Monckton, at Beausejour, seized about four 
hundred men ; but the other inhabitants of that The great 
region escaped into the wilds. Colonel Winslow, ^^ishment. 
marching in haste to Grand Pre, summoned the villagers to meet 
him in the chapel, read them the decree of banishment, shut the 
doors upon them, and held them all close captives. Captain 
Murray in like manner seized the men of Piziquid ; and Major 
Handheld captured those of the Annapolis district. A few active 
spirits, attentive to the first mutterings of the storm, got away in 
time, and sought refuge in the forests or across the bay. Then 
followed a long and trying season, for the transports were not 
ready. As the ships came in which were to bear them into exile, 
the men were marched down to the shore in squads, and their 
families and movable possessions were then distributed to them. 
The provision ships were long in coming ; and the grievous work 



I30 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

dragged on, amid daily prayers and lamentations, till far into 
December. The greatest care was taken to avoid the separation 
of families, and as far as could be managed the inhabitants of 
each village were sent off together. Down to the flat red shore 
rumbled and creaked the rude Acadian carts, heaped with house- 
hold treasures ; and beside the carts moved the weeping peasant 
women, their bewildered children clinging to their skirts. Ship 
after ship sailed from Minas, Chignecto, and Annapolis, and 
distributed their sorrowful burdens among the English colonies of 
the coast. The numbers of the exiled amounted to more than 
six thousand.^ One ship-load overcame its crew, ran the vessel 
ashore at St. John, and escaped to Quebec, whither they were 
followed by hundreds of those who had in the beginning evaded 
capture. Some found their way to Louisiana, where they formed 
a separate colony, and where their sons retain to this day their 
picturesque and quaint peculiarities. Many, with an unconquer- 
able thirst for home, forced their way back to Acadie, where, 
being no longer dangerous, they were suffered to settle down 
again in peace. Their descendants, and those of the few who 
had accepted English sway, now form a large and influential part 
of the population of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. By this 
great banishment the best lands of Nova Scotia were left empty, 
and the governor strove to fill them up with an English population ; 
but it was five years before life began to stir anew on the bosom 
of those desolated meadows. 

46. The Struggle in the West. — Turning back from Acadie 
to the west, we find the struggle no less fierce on the great river 
Ohio than on the little muddy stream of the Missiguash. On the 
The Ohio death of Jonquiere the Marquis Duquesne, as we 

valley. have seen, had been made governor. Duquesne 

pushed sharply the claims of France to the whole Ohio val- 
ley. As soon as the boundary commission at Paris broke up 



1 It was something over 18,000 people that Louis XIV had proposed to remove 
from New York, without a tenth of the provocation that the Acadians had given. 



THE STRUGGLE IN THE WEST. 131 

he got the militia of Canada into fighting trim, foreseeing war. 
The habitans, as the censitaire farmers of Canada were called, 
were a more military race than the Acadians. They had been 
trained in the fur-trade and in the Indian wars. Duquesne sent 
an expedition down the Alleghany River to the Ohio, to build new 
forts and strengthen those already estabhshed. This expedition 
produced a great effect on the western tribes, and many chiefs 
who had been coquetting with the English hastened to vow fideUty 
to France. The expedition was marked by Dinwiddle, the watch- 
ful governor of Virginia, who at once sent messengers to warn 
it away from what he claimed as English territory. The leader 
of this difficult and dehcate mission was a youth of twenty-one. 
His name was George Washington. He accomplished his task 
with that dauntless energy and courage which he was afterwards 
to display in a wider sphere. He was courteously received by 
St. Pierre, the French leader, whom he found established in Fort 
le Boeuf on the Alleghany ; but his errand, needless to say, proved 
vain. 

Seeing the French determined to make good their hold on the 
Alleghanies, the English organized a strong trading company, 
called the Ohio Company, which purchased a large port 
area of land in the region under dispute. The shrewd ^'^"i^^sne. 
eye of Virginia's governor saw that the key to the Ohio valley was 
the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, where now 
stands Pittsburg. Here the Ohio Company began a fort. When 
it was nearly built the French arrived. They drove out the garri- 
son, tore down the unfinished structure, and on the foundations 
raised a more imposing stronghold which they called Fort Du- 
quesne. They were doubtless grateful to their rivals for pointing 
out the value of the site. 

Though there was still the fiction of a peace between France 
and England, Dinwiddle not unnaturally regarded this act as a 
declaration of war. Washington was sent out again, this time 
with a force of regulars and backwoodsmen, to repel all further 
encroachment, and to take Fort Duquesne. Hearing of Wash- 



132 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ington's approach, the commander of the fort despatched a small 
party to reconnoitre and to warn the trespassers away from 
French soil. The two parties met. Each suspected the other 
of treachery. In those great solitudes it was like men fighting 
in the dark, shocked by strange terrors. The English began the 
battle ; but how far their action was justifiable it is now hard to 
decide. The French were cut to pieces ; and French accounts 
called the affair an assassination. However the case may be, this 
small but desperate skirmish between two handfuls of men in the 
wilderness was the spark from which soon sprang a conflagration. 
Washington's main camp was on what were called the Great 
Meadows ; and there, expecting immediate assault in force from 
Fort Duquesne, he made haste to entrench himself. To the 
„ . . slight defences which he was able to throw up he 

Washington ° * 

at Fort gave the name of Fort Necessity; and hither came 

Necessity. ■' 

reinforcements of militia and Indians, till he had 

about three hundred and fifty men inside the feeble lines. To 
the attack came de Villiers from Fort Duquesne, with an over- 
whelming array. After a nine hours' fight in drenching storm, the 
trenches a slough of blood and mire, Fort Necessity surrendered ; 
and Washington, marching out with honours of war, led his de- 
spondent little army back across the mountains. When de Villiers 
returned in triumph to Fort Duquesne he left not a vestige of 
EngUsh control in all the Ohio valley. The Indians outdid each 
other in their devotion to the victors ; and in the war which 
immediately followed their tomahawks and tactics brought disaster 
on the English more than once. 

In the following year the English government ordered two 

regiments to America, under the command of General Braddock. 

France promptly prepared a much larger force for 

plan of Canada, under the leadership of Baron Dieskau. At 

action. 

the same time she sent out the Marquis de Vaudreuil 
as governor, to relieve Duquesne, whose health had broken down. 
Vaudreuil, a son of the former governor of that name, was a 
native Canadian, and his appointment pleased the people. Both 



BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION. 1 33 

France and England now protested that nothing was further from 
their thoughts than war ; but both made every effort to get in the 
first blow. On Braddock's arrival a meeting of the colonial gov- 
ernors was held, and the reduction of Forts Duquesne, Niagara, 
and Crown Point was decided upon. The expedition against 
Beaus^jour, already described, was at this time well under way, 
thanks to the tireless energy of Shirley. The attack on Fort Du- 
quesne Brad dock took upon himself; that on Niagara was en- 
trusted to Shjirley ; and that on Crown Point to Colonel William 
Johnson.^ 

While Beaus^jour was crumbling before the New England guns, 
Braddock was forcing his way through the difficult wilderness 
between the Virginian settlements and Fort Duquesne. 
His army consisted of one thousand British regulars expedition^ 
and twelve hundred of the Virginia militia. Centre- Duouesne"'^* 
coeur, the commander of Fort Duquesne, felt that 
there was little hope of withstanding such a force ; but he resolved 
to throw down the gage of battle ere the enemy could reach his 
threshold. He threw out into the forest a party of two hundred 
Frenchmen and five hundred Indians, under the command of a 
daring officer named Beaujeu. These skirmishers, trained woods- 
men all, placed themselves in ambush on both sides of the trail 
along which Braddock was moving. 

The English army had just crossed the Monongahela, and 
Braddock was momently expecting the gray walls of the fort to 
rise upon his view. It was a clear day in July, and the sun beat 
fiercely down upon the long line of scarlet and blue which filled 
the path between the deep green forest walls. Suddenly a French 
officer, wearing the war-paint and head-dress of an Indian, ap- 
peared in the middle of the road ; and the vanguard halted in 



1 Johnson was a settler on the Upper Hudson. He was not a trained soldier, 
but was brave and sagacious. His influence with the eastern cantons of the 
Iroquois was enormous, and kept them from going over, like the Senecas, to the 
French alliance. He was married to Molly Brant, sister of the famous Chief Brant 
of the Mohawks. 



134 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

wonder. At a signal from this apparition there shrilled the 
daunting war-cry of unseen savages ; and out of the sunny leaf- 
age on either hand streamed a murderous storm of lead. The 
English at first fired steadily at their invisible foes ; but know- 
ing nothing of forest warfare they held solidly to their ranks, and 
so offered a helpless target. When the main body came up, it 
caught the confusion of the vanguard ; and the whole army, 
Braddock's bewildered and cowed by the murderous converging 
defeat. ^^^ ^^^ l^y ^ sense of utter powerlessrjiess, huddled 

together in a trembling mass. The Virginian militia, who knew 
how to fight in the woods, scattered out in skirmish lines behind 
rock and tree, and would probably have saved the day but for 
Braddock's folly. He thought it looked cowardly to fight behind 
trees, and beating them with the flat of his sword he ordered 
them back into line. Appalling were the heat and tumult. The 
stupefied soldiery, too stubborn to run, too panic-stricken to see 
what they were doing, fired at friend and foe alike, or shot their 
useless weapons into the air. All through the afternoon went on 
the carnage. Braddock stormed about the melee, fearless and 
furious. He had four horses shot beneath him. At length he 
ordered a retreat ; and even as he did so his fate overtook him, 
and he fell, shot through the lungs. Indomitable to the last, he 
ordered that he was to be left on the field ; but the militia dis- 
regarded his words and carried him to the rear. The retreat 
was covered by Washington with a small party of his Virginians, 
who, fighting like their foes, were able to hold them in check. 
Washington had two horses killed under him, and his uniform 
was torn with bullets. Of the whole force scarce six hundred 
left the field, and these poor remnants fled trembhng back to 
Fort Cumberland, with their wounded and their shame, and left 
the frontier settlements naked to ravage. 

The mistake made by Braddock was in refusing to adapt his 
tactics to the situation. He was superbly brave, energetic, vigi- 
lant, and tenacious. He did not, as he has been accused of 
doing, lead his men into an ambuscade. His line of march was 



JOHNSON'S VICTORY AT FORT GEORGE. 135 

well arranged, and he had scouting parties out on both sides to 
guard against surprise. But he scorned the mihtia, on whose 
experience in Indian warfare he should have depended ; and he 
thought it unworthy of men to dodge behind cover. His regu- 
lars, excellent troops for fighting in the open, might have done 
good service here also had the Virginians been in front to show 
them how. The unhappy general, as he lay dying, murmured 
grateful praise to the mihtia, and almost his last words were, 
" We shall better know how to deal with them another time." 
There was rejoicing in Canada, lamentation in the colonies. 
The expedition of Shirley against Niagara was at once aban- 
doned. But Johnson, with his undisciplined back- 

Johnson's 

woodsmen and his Mohawks, was not to be diverted victory at 
from his attack on Crown Point. Of this plan, how- 
ever, the French had got timely warning from papers of Brad- 
dock's found on the bloody field of Monongahela. Baron Dies- 
kau and his veterans, who were just setting out for the capture 
of Oswego, were sent instead to Lake Champlain. Johnson 
built, as his base, a fort on the Hudson, known thereafter as 
Fort Edward. Thence he marched to the foot of Lake George, 
fourteen miles distant, and there erected Fort George. While 
he was thus occupied the French general, with a portion of his 
force, moved upon Fort Edward. Johnson sent out a thousand 
men to check him, but this detachment was utterly routed. It 
saved Fort Edward, however ; for Dieskau, thinking to follow 
up his advantage, turned swiftly upon Fort George. The Eng- 
lish hastily threw up breastworks . of logs. Their position was 
a strong one, and they outnumbered their assailants. Dieskau 
was impetuous ; and he burned, moreover, to emulate the vic- 
tory at Monongahela. He hurled his troops — regulars, Cana- 
dian militia, Indians — against the English front and flank. But 
vain was his valour. Six hundred of his men were cut down 



1 Volunteers of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
and New York. 



136 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

amid the underbrush. The rest were driven back in wild rout ; 
and he himself, desperately wounded, was carried a prisoner 
into the English camp (1755). The Mohawks, furious at the 
loss of some of their highest chiefs, howled for vengeance upon 
him. But Johnson held them with a stern hand, and treated his 
illustrious captive with all courtesy. For this success Johnson was 
made a baronet ; and on the scene of it was built Fort William 
Henry. When the year closed it left the French overwhelmingly 
triumphant in the west ; but checked on Lake George, and beaten 
in Nova Scotia. 



CHAPTER X. 

SECTIONS: — 47, the Seven Years' War. Fall of Fort 
William Henry. 48, the Combatants compared. Louis- 
burg ONCE more. 49, TiCONDEROGA. 50, THE BEGINNING OF 

THE End. 

47. The Seven Years' War. Fall of Fort William Henry. 

— And now, after fierce battles in America, in India, and on the 

sea, England formally declared war (i7?6). France 

' ^ ■' \ i:> J The Seven 

followed at once, and other European powers rushed Years' war 

begins. 

in. With France were allied Austria, Russia, and 
numerous lesser states. By the side of England stood Prussia, a 
small kingdom, but terrible in war, because ruled by one of the 
most wonderful of leaders, King Frederick the Great. Though 
England came out triumphant from this grim struggle of the 
Seven Years' War, it must be borne in mind that the glory 
does not all belong to her. She was able to win victories at 
Louisburg, at Quebec, and on the plains of Hindostan, because 
her enemies' hands were kept busy in Europe by her tireless and 
indomitable ally. If the weak Louis XVI had not been dragged 
by the intrigues of favourites into attacking Frederick, all the 
immense military power of France might have been put forth in 
America and India. The great duel for colonial empire might 
have had far other ending, and the current of history might have 
been turned into so different a channel that imagination fails to 
picture it. 

At the first of the war the English suffered heavily. The line 
of the AUeghanies, left open by Braddock's defeat, ran red with 

137 



138 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



blood. The border settlements of Pennsylvania were raided by 
Indian war-parties, till all the lodges of the Ohio valley were 

filled with English prisoners and English scalps. The 
vania'sbor- Quaker assembly at Philadelphia covered itself with 

shame by refusing to defend the frontier. It cared 
only to extort concessions from the governor. All the old agonies 
of border battle were repeated, but now along a border that had 
never been taught to protect itself — a border naked of forts, 
block-houses, and warlike defenders. 

France now sent out to Canada, with some veteran regiments, 
one of her ablest commanders, the heroic and valiant Montcalm.^ 
With him were de L^vi, de Bougainville, and de Bourlamaque, 
worthy lieutenants to such a chief. To oppose Montcalm the 

Enghsh government, then led by the incompetent Duke 

Montcalm tot> ',^;^^, 

comes to of Newcastle, sent out the Earl of Loudoun and Gen- 

eral Abercrombie. Thus France scored the first ad- 
vantage, in setting skilled captains to confront the feeble leaders 
of her foe. Montcalm, full of energy and resource, lost no time. 
He captured and destroyed Oswego, taking fourteen hundred 
prisoners and an immense quantity of stores. This was an im- 
portant success, for Oswego was the base from which the English 
were about to attack Niagara. The west was thus made secure. 
Then the tireless commander ascended Lake Champlain, and 
took up his position at Ticonderoga, a few miles beyond Crown 
Point. Here, on the thoroughfare between Lake Champlain and 
Lake George, he entrenched himself securely. The position, 
naturally strong, his engineers made all but impregnable. By 
this move he closed and barred the inland gates of Canada. 

Meanwhile the Earl of Loudoun did nothing but hold councils 
Loudoun at ^^'^^ reviews. In the following year he sailed for 
Halifax. Halifax, with fourteen ships of war and the greater 

portion of his troops. His purpose was an attack on Louisburg. 

1 Louis de St. Veran, Marquis de Montcalm, at that time 44 years of age. He 
had distinguished himself in Italy and in Bohemia, and had won his promotion by 
his valour. He was born at Candiac, in the south of France, in 1712. 



MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 139 

He spent the summer in idly threatening that stronghold, in drill- 
ing his already well-drilled men, and in growing garden stuff to 
keep the soldier's blood in good condition. Men said that he 
would carry on the campaign with cabbages for cannon-balls. At 
length he heard that Louisburg had been strongly reinforced, 
and that twenty-two French ships of the line were lying under its 
guns. In discomfiture he sailed back to New York. Admiral 
Holborne, however, who commanded the English fleet, was of 
better mettle. He cruised to and fro before the harbour of Louis- 
burg, trying to tempt the French ships out to battle ; till at last 
a storm arose and so shattered his fleet that he had to sail away 
for repairs. 

Meanwhile Montcalm, seeing Loudoun's mistake in carrying his 
troops off to Halifax, came out of his lines at Ticonderoga, moved 

down Lake George, and with six thousand men laid 

. . The massacre 

siege to Fort William Henry. The fort was well atFortwn- 

liam Henry. 

built, and garrisoned by two thousand two hundred 
men under a brave Scotch soldier, Colonel Munro. Fourteen 
miles away, at Fort Edward, lay General Webb, with a force of 
thirty-six hundred. Montcalm, remembering the fate of Dieskau, 
attempted no assault ; but before settling down to a regular siege 
he asked the fort to surrender, saying that his victory was sure, 
but that if there was stubborn resistance he feared he might be 
unable to check the ferocity of his Indians, who made up a third 
of his force. Munro answered that he would defend his post to 
the end ; and his guns opened fire. Soon the French field-pieces 
were in position, and under their battering the wooden ramparts 
of the fort flew rapidly to splinters. Munro had sent urgent 
petition to Webb for reinforcements, but that ofiicer declared that 
he could not spare a man. As the position of Fort William Henry 
grew more and more desperate, Munro repeated his appeal with 
vehemence. Three thousand six hundred men were lying idle at 
Fort Edward. Had this force moved upon Montcalm's rear while 
the garrison assailed his front, the French would have found them- 
selves in perilous straits. But W^ebb was a coward. He had no 



I40 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

heart to come out from his ramparts while Indian scalping- knives 
were in the field. At last, his fort in ruins, and a general assault 
with all its horrors impending, Munro capitulated. Montcalm 
allowed the garrison to march out with the honours of war, and 
pledged himself to protect them from the Indians. But now fol- 
lowed a deed that brought dishonour on the French arms ; for 
Montcalm had promised more than he could perform. The 
Indians were in an ugly mood, because the fort had yielded scant 
plunder. As the English troops, with all their women and chil- 
dren, were filing through the woods to Fort Edward, the savages 
burst upon them. The men were helpless, having given up their 
arms to the victors. Women were snatched out of the ranks and 
scalped. Children were dashed to pieces against the trees. The 
heads of men were split open with hatchets. A hideous clamour 
arose of shrieks and oaths and yells. The wilderness became a 
reeking shambles. Beside himself with shame, Montcalm ran 
hither and thither sword in hand, and strove to check the slaugh- 
ter. He threatened ; he implored ; and several of his ofificers, 
passionately seconding his efforts, were wounded in the struggle 
with their butchering allies. But every French bayonet should 
have been ordered to the charge ere the stain of such a treachery 
was allowed to rest on Montcalm's honour. To him had the fort 
surrendered, and he was responsible for the prisoners. When at 
last the butchery was stopped the savages made off, in fear lest 
their captives and their plunder should be taken from them. 
Fort William Henry was then levelled to the ground. The spirit 
of Canada, by this victory, was braced anew for the great struggle 
in which she was now finally locked ; but Montcalm's heart was 
heavy for the shame which his aUies had put upon him. 

48, The Combatants compared. Louisburg once more. — At 
this hour of exultation for France, of gloom for England, there 
Pitt comes came a sudden change. The incompetent Newcastle 
into power. niinistry was cast down, and the " Great Commoner," 
William Pitt, was called to power. His dauntless will and swift 
energy made themselves felt in every pulse of the empire, and 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH COLONIES COMPARED. 141 

English hearts revived ; while in Canada the sagacious eyes of 
Montcalm watched anxiously to mark in what direction the new 
fire of his adversaries would strike. 

The end of the great duel for colonial empire was now close at 
hand. The English colonies were far richer and ten times more 
populous than Canada. In more or less compact The French 
settlements they could boast a population of about colonel wm- 
one million three hundred thousand souls ; while Can- p^""^*. 
ada had scarcely more than sixty thousand inhabitants, and these 
trailed thinly along the St. Lawrence, with denser clusters at Que- 
bec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. Her vast western territory was 
held only by a frail chain of forts, the capture of almost any one 
of which would put an end to her connection with Louisiana. Her 
inhabitants were impoverished, ground helplessly beneath the ra- 
pacious hands of Bigot and his crew ; while the Enghsh colonists, 
lightly taxed and cheaply governed, were rapidly growing in 
wealth. On the other hand, the English colonies were unwieldy 
in war, because of their unwillingness to act together, their extreme 
economy in military expenditure, and their jealousy of each other 
as well as of the home government. The Canadians were under one 
control. The habitans were all bound in military service to their 
seigneurs, and the seigneurs to the King. Thus the commander- 
in-chief, as the King's military representative, could wield the 
whole body as one man. And this whole body was inured to war. 
Canada was like a bright, light weapon, ready drawn, and bran- 
dished in all directions ; while the English colonies were like a 
huge blade, strong and terrible indeed, but hard to wield and 
rusted in the sheath. 

As the struggle was not, at the last, decided wholly by the 
sword, a word is needed here to show how the military genius 
and tried valour of men like Montcalm and his lieu- Bigot's cor- 
tenants were made vain by civil rottenness at the heart ™Pti°°- 
of Canada. The civil affairs of the colony were in the hands of a 
creature of the King's mistresses, the briUiant and infamous Bigot. 
As intendant, he held the purse-strings. Offices of profit imder 



142 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

his authority he filled with such men as would follow his example 
and act as his tools. The old seigneurial families, unable to stem 
the tide of corruption, for the most part held aloof on their 
estates ; though a few yielded to the baneful example. The 
masses suffered in helpless silence. Montcalm, the military chief, 
had small means of knowing the real state of affairs, and still less 
means of interfering had he known. The governor alone, Vau- 
dreuil, might have changed it ; but he was either blinded by 
Bigot's cleverness or in sympathy with his crimes. Either directly 
or through his confederates, of whom the most notorious was a 
contractor named Cadet, Bigot's thieveries rose to a colossal 
figure. The King's milUons sent out for war, the people's millions 
squeezed from them in crushing taxes, alike found their way into 
these rapacious pockets. The enemies of New France within the 
walls were as deadly as those without. As outside perils thickened, 
Bigot's thefts grew more daring. Forts fell like ripe fiiiit into the 
hands of the Enghsh, because they were commanded by weak 
favourites of the intendant, or because the intendant had kept 
the money which should have supplied them with arms and food. 
Brave soldiers were left half-starved, half-clothed, half-armed, that 
Bigot and his followers might revel in profligate excess. It is 
claimed that in two years alone, 1757 and 1758, the intendant 
cheated his King and country out of nearly five million dollars. A 
few years later, when New France had passed into Enghsh hands 
and the flag of the lilies had been lowered on all her strongholds, 
Bigot was thrown into the Bastille. Being brought to trial and 
condemned, he was banished from France for hfe, his estates 
were confiscated, and a crushing fine was laid upon him. His 
confederates, in varying degrees, received like punishment. 

To return to the conflict. The first blow of Pitt's heav}^ hand 
fell on Louisburg. To reduce this dreaded stronghold he sent 
out a force under General Amherst,^ with James Wolfe as second 

1 Aftenvards made Lord Amherst. He was a brave and experienced com* 
mander, skilful but slow. He did good service in this campaign, but has been 
thrown into eclipse by the brilliancy of Wolfe's achievements. 



WOLFE AND MONTCALM. 



143 



in command. Though but thirty-two years old, and of delicate 
health, Wolfe had won distinction for s'agacity and fiery courage 
on the battlefields of Europe. He was chosen over the heads 
of many seniors, because in the ardent young soldier characteris- 
Pitt's keen eye had discerned the qualities dear to his and Moat*-*^ 
own heart and necessary to the execution of his daring *'^^™" 
purpose. Wolfe was loved by his followers and his fellows, trusted 
implicitly by his superiors. In a warlike generation his bravery 
was conspicuous. His character was a rare combination of wis- 
dom, manhood, gentleness, though marred sHghtly by an irritable 
temper. It is a somewhat strange coincidence that his great 
opponent should have been a man distinguished by like qualities. 
In appearance the noble antagonists were most unlike. Mont- 
calm, with erect, strong, soldierly figure, square, resolute face, full 
forehead and dominant chin, looked his part. Of Wolfe's face 
the most prominent feature was the somewhat tilted nose, from 
which forehead and chin receded sharply. His upper lip was 
long and full, so that the lower part of his mouth looked weak by 
contrast. His chest was narrow ; his frail limbs were ill-fitted for 
■warHke exercise ; his long, red hair was gathered in a queue. But 
in his eyes, masterful and penetrating, burned the light of his 
indomitable spirit.^ 

With the army under Amherst and Wolfe went a strong fleet 
led by Admiral Boscawen. Early in June, 1758, the whole force 
reached Gabarus Bay. Louisburg, since its capture 

^ °' ^ Louisburg. 

by Pepperell thirteen years before, had been vastly 
strengthened, especially on that landward side where it had 
proved vulnerable. Within its mighty ramparts dwelt and traded 
a population of about four thousand souls. Its commandant was a 
brave and prudent officer, the Chevalier de Drucour. Its garrison 
consisted of three thousand regular troops, veterans of European 



1 Wolfe was the son of an English officer. He had been in the army from 
the age of fifteen. Adjutant of his regiment at sixteen, he was lieutenant-colonel 
at twenty-three, through his own merits. He had served with high distinction at 
Dettingen, Culloden, and other famous battles. 



144 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

wars, besides a body of armed citizens. Under the heavy bastions 
of the water-front rode at anchor twelve war-ships, carrying about 
three thousand men and five hundred and forty-four guns. The 
batteries of the fortress mounted in all two hundred and nineteen 
heavy cannon and seventeen mortars. 

It is a high tribute to Pepperell's judgment that his plan of 
attack was followed by the experienced Amherst. But Amherst's 
The second landing, on the shore of Gabarus Bay, was a more dif- 
siege. ficult task than Pepperell had found it. It was done 

through a heavy surf, and in the face of an enemy well prepared 
to repulse it. Wolfe, armed only with a cane, led the movement. 
The fight was deadly fierce, but brief. Boats were shattered on 
the rocks, or swamped by cannon shot, but the red-coated assail- 
ants would not be checked. They swarmed ashore with cheers. 
A battery was captured ; and the French at length were routed 
with heavy loss. The EngHsh gave chase through the thickets of 
young fir-trees till they came out upon the morass, in fall view of 
the great ramparts. Then the cannon thundered against them 
and drove them back. Meanwhile the whole force had made a 
landing. The result of this success was a prompt abandonment 
of the Grand Battery, as well as the battery on Lighthouse Point, 
which were thus outflanked. They were at once occupied by the 
English and their fire turned against the Island Battery. Night 
and day this duel of giants was kept up, the heavy guns roaring 
defiance back and forth across the harbour. Steadily and quietly 
the invaders, burrowing like moles, ran their zigzag trenches closer 
to the walls, planting their batteries nearer and nearer, hurling 
back the fiery sorties of the garrison, and holding hke bulldogs to 
every advantage gained. Soon the Island Battery was silenced, 
and the gate of the harbour lay open to the English fleet. But 
Drucour sank four large ships in the jaws of the passage, barring 
it anew. His other ships were set on fire by shells and burned, 
except one which was daringly cut out by a party of English 
sailors. The position of the garrison grew desperate. 

In the intervals of the cannonade, however, nice courtesies 



FINAL CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. 



145 



were exchanged between the rival leaders. Amherst ordered his 
gunners to spare as far as possible the houses of the town. Dru- 
cour sent word to Amherst under a flag of truce that he had a 
wonderfully skilful surgeon, whose services were at the disposal of 
wounded English officers. Amherst took pains to send in reports 
and messages ft-om his wounded captives ; and to Madame Dru- 
cour he sent a basket of pineapples with many regrets for the dis- 
comforts which he was causing her. Madame Drucour, not to be 
outdone, presented her foe with a hamper of fine French wines. 

For all these courtesies the fight was no less fierce. At last, 
with his ramparts breached, his best guns silenced, and nearly half 
his garrison killed or wounded, to save the town from the horrors 
of assault Drucour made unconditional surrender. He had gained 
the glory of a heroic defence. He had held out so long that, as 

he purposed, there was no time that year for Amherst 

. . ^ The final 

to strike another blow at Canada. The brave de- fan of Louis- 
burg, 
fenders of Louisburg were sent to England as pris- 
oners of war. With the fall of the stronghold all Cape Breton, 
and also the island of St. John in the Gulf (now Prince Edward 
Island), passed under the Enghsh flag. For months went on the 
toil of demoHshing the mighty fortifications, — blowing up case- 
mates, fining in ditches, shattering the walls of stone with pick and 
crowbar, — till Louisburg was no more. But the vast fines of the 
earthworks are still to be traced, covered with a mantle of green 
turf; and the bells of pasturing sheep tinkle softly over the tomb 
of the vanished fortress. 

49. Ticonderoga. — But while the French were suffering this 
deadly stroke at Louisburg, they triumphed on Lake Champlain. 
Not yet had the chief antagonists come face to face. While 
Wolfe was serving Amherst at Louisburg, Montcalm lay in the 
lines of Ticonderoga. At the other end of Lake George, preparing 
to march against him, was encamped General Abercrombie with 
fifteen thousand men. Montcalm's position was one of matchless 
strength. The fort itself stood on a rocky height overlooking the 
head of Lake Champlain. Behind it ran a rough valley ; and the 



146 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

crest of the ridge beyond was fortified by a higli and zigzag breast- 
work, built of trunks of trees with sharpened branches pointing 
outwards Uke the spines of some colossal porcupine. The sloping 
approach to this breastwork was set thick with sharp- 

Montcalm's ^ ^ ' 

victory at ened stakes and felled trees, making it almost impas- 

Ticonderoga. ° ' 

sable. Behind these lines were only between three 
and four thousand men, to oppose the fifteen thousand of Aber- 
crombie. But they were led by Montcalm, with de Levis and de 
Bougainville to support him. Abercrombie was a man of slight 
capacity and wavering will, who owed his high position not to 
merit but to favour. So strong were his friends that even Pitt, 
who saw his weakness, had not cared to remove him from com- 
mand. The wary statesman had contented himself with appoint- 
ing as Abercrombie's second in command one who might be 
expected in a measure to make up for his chiefs deficiencies. 
This was the young Lord Howe, an officer of radiant promise. 
Howe was the very life of the army. Adored alike by the regu- 
lars and the militia, he was rigid in discipline, ready in resource, 
discreet, yet boundlessly audacious in the hour of need. Had he 
lived, the story of Ticonderoga might have been far different. 
But in a chance skirmish on the way to the battlefield a bullet 
struck him down ; and from that moment the whole army was in 
confusion. Abercrombie made no attempt to outflank Montcalm's 
position, or to cut off his supplies by occupying the lake shores 
beyond. During a whole, long, dreadful day he hurled his dogged 
soldiery against that impregnable glacis, wherein they were mown 
down hke grass by the close fire of the hidden defenders. Among 
the English were a regiment of Highlanders, who fought like 
tigers, hacking at the stakes with their claymores to reach the barri- 
cade. Regulars and militia outdid each other in feats of stubborn 
daring, of which the French spoke afterwards with wondering 
praise. But the splendid sacrifice was all in vain. Abercrombie 
might as well have taken his troops and hurled them into the 
lake. When night fell two thousand English dead lay amid the 
sharp branches of the glacis. Of the French there had fallen but 



NEW FRANCE CUT IN TWO. 1 47 

three hundred. They had made a glorious defence. Abercrombie, 
Avith fainting heart, fell back upon Fort William Henry. He was 
presently relieved of his command. 

The joy in Canada over this victory was soon damped by news 
of disaster. While Abercrombie lay trembling at Fort William 
Henry, cursed by all his men, Bradstreet with a body 
of colonial militia had crossed Lake Ontario in whale- ^/p^JI Fort 
boats and captured Fort Frontenac. With the fort he Cutting New 
took rich stores, and all the French ships that sailed ^^^^ ^^ 
the lake. This success cut Canada in two. Fort Du- 
quesne, severed from its source of supplies, forsaken by the fickle 
tribes who had aided in the overthrow of Braddock, and hotly 
attacked by a force under General Forbes, was abandoned in 
November (1758). The retreating garrison blew up their fortifi- 
cations. Near the same site the Enghsh now raised a new strong- 
hold with a name of good omen. They called it Fort Pitt; and 
to the cluster of traders' cabins that gathered about it was given 
the name of Pittsburg. 

During this same year, while forts were falling and battles rag- 
ing east and west, an event took place which was full of peaceful 
significance. The first legislative assembly ever held Legislative 
in what now forms Canada was called together at heid™tHaii- 
Halifax. The pioneers who had built the city had *^^' 
come out, as we have seen, under promise of free representative 
institutions. Now this promise found its first measure of fulfil- 
ment. The people of Nova Scotia were called upon to elect 
such men as they desired to represent them and to legislate for 
them. But almost all the real power was kept in the hands of 
the governor and other crown officials. To make these represen- 
tative institutions really free cost a century of ceaseless struggle, 
destined soon to begin and to colour a whole period in our story. 

50. The Beginning of the End. — Both sides now seemed to 
realize that the death-grapple was fairly begun. A gloom hung 
over Canada. In the west she had lost the I^ake country, and 
some of her strongest alhes among the Indians. In the centre, 



148 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

where Montcalm was, she had superbly held her own. But in 
the east her case looked ruinous enough. Her world-famous 
stronghold of Louisburg snatched from her, she had been vio- 
lently hurled back upon the St. Lawrence. At her 
Montcalm on -^ ^ 

thedefen- heart, meanwhile, gnawed Bigot's greedy pack, deaf 
sive. 

to every appeal in this supreme hour of their country's 

peril. To France the tottering colony cried for aid ; but France 
was hard pressed in Europe. She could spare no more regiments 
for Canada, no more gold for Bigot's pockets. Montcalm was 
told to stand on the defensive and wait for fortune to change. 

Between Montcalm and the governor-general, the vain and 
jealous Vaudreuil, there was sharp antagonism ; but they acted 
together in this crisis. Vaudreuil called out all the remaining 
militia reserves, and concentrated them about Quebec, where 
Montcalm now made his headquarters. To the defence of 
Niagara were called in the garrisons of the remaining western 
forts, from Detroit to Venango, together with the north-west- 
ern tribes who dwelt about Michilimackinac. To Bourlamaque, 
one of Montcalm's bravest lieutenants, was set the hard task of 
holding Lake Champlain and the Richelieu against the English 
advance on Montreal. 

In the spring of 1759 the English opened the campaign. Their 
plan was a sweeping one. General Prideaux and Sir William John- 
son were sent against Niagara. Amherst, in the centre. 

The English *'. * ' . . ' 

plan of cam- was to force the inland gateway, descend the Richelieu, 

paign. a J 

and capture Montreal. Then he and the Niagara ex- 
pedition were to unite, come down the St. Lawrence, and help 
Wolfe take Quebec. Before turning our eyes upon Wolfe's gigantic 
task, let us see how the ventures of Prideaux and Amherst fared. 

The expedition against Niagara arrived before the reinforce- 
ments which were to succour the doomed post. The fort was 
Fan of Fort regularly besieged; and its defences soon gave way 
Niagara. before the English guns. Prideaux was killed, and 

Johnson took command. Presently came the French reinforce- 
ments. Johnson faced them with a portion of his force, struck 



AMHERST ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 149 

them heavily, and drove them back in fragments. Thus deprived 
of its last hope, the garrison at once laid down its arms. Broken 
was the last hold of France on the great west. 

In the centre Amherst cautiously pushed his way down Lake 
George. When he drew near, Bourlamaque blew up the dreaded 
walls of Ticonderoga and fell back upon Crown Point. Thence 
he again retired to a much stronger and more strategically im- 
portant position on Isle aux Noix, at the narrow outlet of Lake 
Champlain. Here he gathered all his forces to make a final 
stand. He held control of the lake by means of four well- 
armed sloops. In the face of their guns it was impossible for 
Amherst to advance in his open boats ; so he spent Bourlamaque 
the summer in building vessels to cope with those of hers^on^Lake 
the French. When this was done the weather turned Champiam. 
stormy, so he concluded to winter at Crown Point. He was a 
brave leader, but in his own deliberate way ; too painfully method- 
ical for an enterprise like this, which called for dash and risks. 
At all costs he should have forced his way forward and created 
a diversion in Wolfe's favour. But he preferred to build forts 
and secure his advance by strictly regular process. Bourla- 
maque at Isle aux Noix and Montcalm at Quebec were gratified 
by his forbearance, but little impressed by his brilliancy. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SECTIONS : — 51, Wolfe and Montcalm Face to Face. 52, the 
Plains of Abraham. 53, Quebec l\ English Hands. 

51. Wolfe and Montcalm Face to Face. — To defend Quebec, 

to make his last stand for France in Canada, Montcalm had about 

^,. ^ X fifteen thousand regulars and Canadian militia, with 
The forces of ° ' 

Montcalm perhaps a thousand Indians. The regulars were his 
and Wolfe. ° 

only rehance for battle in the open ; while in bush- 
fighting, on the other hand, one Canadian was considered equal 
to three regulars. All the troops alike were good behind en- 
trenchments ; wherefore Montcalm resolved to take the defensive, 
and force his foe to break himself to pieces on his lines. He 
would make Quebec another Ticonderoga. To bring against 
the sixteen thousand defenders of his almost impregnable posi- 
tion, Wolfe had but nine thousand men ; but these were all tried 
stuff, adapted to any service. 

Leaving a garrison of two thousand in the city itself, under de 
Ramesay, Montcalm ranged his army along the shore from the 
city walls to the Montmorenci River eight miles below. The 
mouth of the St. Charles was closed with a massive boom of 

chained timbers, and both its banks were covered by 

Montcalm's 

plan of de- heavy batteries. A little higher up, the river was 
crossed by a bridge of boats, forming the avenue of 
communication between camp and city. From the St. Charles 
down to the little Beauport stream, the bank of the St. Law- 
rence consists of low meadow-land, with wide shoals spreading- 
before it. At the mouth of the Beauport stream was anchored 

150 



WOLFE BEFORE QUEBEC. 151 

a floating battery. From this point down to the Montmorenci 
the shore is a steep and rocky ridge, with a narrow skirt of 
flats along its base. The whole front of the French position 
was faced with earthworks, crossing the Beauport meadows, and 
crowning the crest of the ridge. On the flats between ridge and 
water, also, were built advance works, strong in repelHng attack, 
but useless to the enemy if captured, because open to the fire 
from the ridge above. The floating battery at the Beauport mouth 
carried twelve heavy guns. The colossal walls of the city itself 
mounted one hundred and six cannon, under whose muzzles, at 
the edge of the Lower Town, clung a fleet of gunboats and fire- 
ships. The most important ships of the French fleet had been 
sent for safety far up the St. Lawrence, that their crews might be 
used in the defence. For eight miles above the city, to the strong 
defences of Cap Rouge, the north bank of the St. Lawrence was a 
precipice 200 feet in height, impassable except at a few points, 
and even at these passes so difficult that a handful of resolute 
men could hold them against an army. On this side no attack 
was dreaded, yet it was watched with vigilance by a force under 
Bougainville. 

Wolfe's army, as we have seen, consisted of about nine thousand 
picked troops. Under him were three energetic and courageous 
brigade-generals, Monckton (the conqueror of Beaus^jour), Town- 
shend, and Murray. There was also a strong fleet 

, ' . T .. • Wolfe 

under Admiral Saunders to cooperate in the enterprise, occupies lie 

d' Orleans. 

Toward the end of June the throng of battle-ships, 
frigates, and transports arrived safely under the green and peopled 
shores of lie d'Orleans. Here Wolfe disembarked his army, led a 
strong force up the island, and entrenched himself on the extreme 
western point, about four miles below Quebec. Before Wolfe's 
eyes was now unfolded the magnitude of his task. On his right 
was the splendid white cataract of Montmorenci leaping out of the 
dark fir groves on the summit of the ridge. Beyond lay the long, 
serried lines of entrenchments, swarming with the white uniforms 
of France. Then, the crowded, steep roofs and spires of the 



152 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Lower Town, with the gunboats and fire-ships on its water ^ont. 
And then, soaring over all, the majestic promontory of Cape 
Diamond ; its grim face seamed with batteries, and stairs, and 
climbing ribbons of street ; its summit crowned with portentous 
bastions and with the chivalrous banners of France. 

A it"^ days after Wolfe's arrival Vaudreuil undertook, at tre- 
mendous expense, to destroy the English fleet with fire-ships, 
vaudreuii's The great hulls were filled with pitch, fireworks, bombs, 
flre-ships. ^^^ ^ manner of old guns loaded to the muzzle. One 
black night these perilous craft were towed into the current of the 
north channel, at the foot of which lay the English fleet at anchor. 
There they were set on fire. The roar and blaze were terrific. 
The red lines of the English on the island, the white masses 
of the French behind their earthworks, were luridly revealed. 
Around each flaming shape rained a shower of death from the 
exploding engines within it ; but the English sailors swarmed 
out in boats, hooked the monsters with grappling irons, and towed 
them close in shore, where they stranded and roared themselves 
harmlessly to silence. 

The next day Wolfe seized the heights of Point L6vi, opposite 
the city, and began to erect his batteries. In the village-churches 
round about Ldvi he posted a proclamation asking the Canadian 
Wolfe at habita7is to stand neutral. He promised them pro- 

Point Levi, tection of Hfe, property, and religion if they did so, 
but fire and pillage if they refused. While the batteries on Levi 
were steadily growing, in defiance of a ceaseless hail of shells from 
the city ramparts, a band of fifteen hundred Quebec volunteers, 
crossing the river some miles above the city, descended in the 
night to rout the foe. They set out with martial zeal. But a 
panic seized them ere they reached the hostile lines. They fled 
back madly to their boats, and returned to Quebec to face the 
jeers of their fellows. 

Wolfe's next move was to effect a landing below the Montmo- 
renci. This was done after a sharp skirmish with the Canadian 
rangers. Here, on the east side of the cataract, Wolfe fortified 



THE ATTACK ON BEAUFORT SHORE. 153 

himself with care, planted a battery, and opened a fire which 
proved very galling to the French lines over the stream. Some 
of the French officers were eager to attack this new -^gug J^t 
position, but Montcalm's judicious policy forbade. Montmorenci. 
" Let him amuse himself where he is," said Montcalm. " If we 
drive him away from there, he may go to some place where he 
can do us more harm." 

Wolfe's position was now dangerous, for his command was cut 
into three parts, either of which might be attacked in force before 
the others could come to its defence. But he longed to lure the 
French out of their lines, and felt that the occasion was one for 
taking great risks. He knew that success in this instance was 
not to be earned by caution or reached by regular 

, , , -r ,1 1- J • 1 The English 

paths ; but only, 11 at all, by some danng and unex- fleet goes up 
pected stroke. He now still further divided his forces. 
His batteries on Point L^vi were fast demolishing the Lower 
Town. Under cover of their fire he ran a portion of the fleet up 
the river beneath the very mouths of the citadel's guns, and laid 
them over against Cap Rouge to threaten Bougainville. This 
division of the fleet was commanded by Admiral Holmes. It now 
began to harass the French sorely by drifting back and forth with 
the tide over the eight miles between Quebec and Cap Rouge. 
Bougainville found himself compelled to follow laboriously along 
the shore so as always to oppose a strong front against any attempt 
at landing. Meanwhile the summer was wearing away ; and 
though the Lower Town was knocked to pieces Quebec was not 
weakening. Supplies were still abundant in the city, and the 
waiting game played by Montcalm was driving Wolfe's eager tem- 
per to desperation. He decided that if Montcalm would not 
come out and fight he must even be attacked in his trenches. 

The attack was made on the extreme left. At low tide there 
was a ford across the mouth of the Montmorenci. The French 
batteries at this point were engaged by a heavy fire from the fleet, 
while a body of grenadiers, Royal Americans, and Highlanders 
dashed shoreward in boats. To aid them came a column from 



154 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the Montmorenci redoubt, fording the turbulent channel, and fol- 
lowing the strip of wet flats along below the ridge. Impatient 
after their long restraint, the grenadiers threw themselves on the 
advance redoubt and carried it with cheers. Then the 

Failure of 

Wolfe's at- place became a slaughter-pen, under the concentrated 

tack on the ^ , , • , r. • ■ , , • 

Beauport fire from the heights. Swarming with thinned ranks 

out of the death-trap, the red-coated companies strug- 
gled fiercely to scale the steep before them. The tall, lean figure 
of Wolfe was everywhere at once, waving his stick, encouraging, 
praising, urging on. But the top of the ridge was a ceaseless 
sheet of fire, and the red masses rolled back shattered. Again 
they returned to the charge ; but soon upon the scene of fury 
broke a drenching storm. The steeps became too shppery to 
climb. The ammunition of defenders and assailants alike was 
soaked and useless. The English drew back baffled into the re- 
doubt which they had taken ; and Wolfe led them off quietly in 
sullen array. Each side claimed that the other had been saved 
from ruin by the storm. But the result of the battle was rejoic- 
ing in Quebec, and in the English camp deep dejection. Along 
those deadly slopes had fallen five hundred of Wolfe's best troops. 
52. The Plains of Abraham. — In Quebec, as the autumn wore 
on, hope rose high. Wolfe had so far accomplished little beyond 
the devastation of some villages. He was ill with a painful disease, 
which now, aggravated by toil, anxiety, and dejection of spirit, 
grew swiftly worse. With it came a fever ; and for many weary 
days he was held to his bed in a farmhouse at INIontmorenci, 
English while gloom fell on the troops. Then came news that 

opposite'^cap ^^^ help could be expected from Amherst. A little 
Rouge. j^^gj. ^j^g captains of the fleet began to talk of giving 

up the enterprise, lest the ships should get caught by an early 
frost. But Wolfe, though he wrote despondently to Pitt, had not 
given up his purpose. He now turned his attention to the heights 
above the city. With his brigadiers he arranged a new plan of 
attack ; and he promised the admiral that if this plan failed he 
would then consent to withdraw. Rapidly and secretly the main 



WOLFE'S FINAL PLAN. 



155 



body of the troops was marched overland from Point Levi by 
night, and concentrated opposite Cap Rouge. The position at 
Montmorenci was abandoned ; and Montcalm, thinking woife's final 
that the foe was at Point L(^vi, was perplexed to know p^^'^- 
what movement was afoot. Did it mean flight, or did it mean 
attack ? Hopeful as he naturally felt, after the summer's success, his 
position was growing difficult from scarcity of food. The English 
ships above the city patrolled the river so well that the supply 
boats from Montreal found it hard to steal through the blockade, 
and many were captured ere they reached the wharves of Quebec. 
The land route, of course, was open ; but where were horses and 
transport waggons for the work of provisioning a city? 

Wolfe's plan was a forlorn hope. Up the face of the cliff, at a 
point about three miles above Quebec, his glass had shown him 
a narrow thread of a path with the tents of a small guard grouped 
about its top. This was the Anse dii Foulon, where a rivulet had 
cut itself a gully down the steep. Up this path by night he 
would send a desperate handful of men, to hold the position to 
the death till the army should follow behind them. The plan was 
known only to the generals and admiral ; but the whole camp 
knew that some great game was to be played. Demand was 
made for twenty-four volunteers. They came forward eagerly, 
for a desperate venture and a goal they could not guess. At last 
there fell a starless night, and the army was ordered to the boats. 
The fleet, as usual, drifted up stream with the tide. He floats 
Then, when the ebb began, the boats cast off", and were river^by^ 
carried swiftly down toward the Anse du Foulon, from ^^^ ■ 
that night called Wolfe's Cove. The boat containing the gallant 
twenty-four was in the lead, Wolfe followed close behind. In 
the darkness of that silent journey, to ease the suspense, he 
quoted softly to the officers about him the calm lines of Gray's 
"Elegy," remarking as he ended — "Gentlemen, I would rather 
have written those lines than take Quebec." And, illustrious as 
is his memory, who shall say that he was not right? 

The venture was a desperate one indeed ; for even if all his 



156 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

force should gain the heights, they would yet have «n army to 
fight of nearly twice their number. But meanwhile the bulk of 
the French troops lay in their old position below the St. Charles, 
thinking, from the furious bombardment which Admiral Saunders 
had opened upon them, that they were to be attacked in front. 
Knowing that the English had not wings, they never dreamed of 
danger in the rear. That night a number of provision boats were 
expected to pass down to Quebec, a fact which the English had 
learned from a deserter. Presently Wolfe's foremost boats were 
carried by a current close to the shore. A sentinel challenged 
them sharply out of the darkness. Fortunately in one of the boats 
The sentries was a Highland officer to whom French was as his 
evaded. ^^^^ tongue. In reply to the sentry's questioning he 

said — "Hush, it's the provision boats. Don't make a noise 
or the English will be upon us." The Frenchman was satis- 
fied. A few minutes later the boats were in the cove ; and 
the men landed noiselessly on the narrow beach between cliff 
and waterside. 

The fate of Canada had ordained that this pass of the Anse du 
Foidon should be guarded by that same coward Vergor who had so 
lightly given up Beaus^jour. He had been tried at the time for 
cowardice, but acquitted through the influence of Vaudreuil and 
The forlorn Bigot. Now, when Wolfe's forlorn hope was creeping 
hope. ^p |.j-^g steep, Vergor was asleep in his tent. When 

those twenty-four daring chmbers reached the summit, there was 
no one to oppose them. They saw close by a glimmering group 
of tents. They dashed on the sleeping guard, shot some, routed 
the others, and captured Vergor as he sprang from his bed in 
l^anic. At the sound of their cheers the rest of the troops, wait- 
ing in the cove below, swarmed up the face of the cliff. Wolfe, 
weak from sickness, but all his soul on fire, found strength to 
reach the top among the foremost. When day broke, it saw 
Wolfe's army in firm array along the brink of the heights. He 
stood between Montcalm at Quebec and Bougainville at Cap 
Rouge, with no choice but victory or ruin. 



THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. 157 

To seek a favourable battle-ground Wolfe moved forward to 
what are called the Plains of Abraham, a grassy and bushy level 
about half a mile in width, forming the western end of 

' ° The English 

the wind-swept summit of Cape Diamond. Less than on the Plains 

of Abraham. 

a mile away, but hidden by a low bare ridge, lay Que- 
bec. On this lofty plateau Wolfe drew up his line, facing towards 
the city. From the thickets surrounding his position the Canadian 
rangers and Indians kept up a sharp skirmishing. Wolfe made 
his men lie down to escape their fire, while he engaged them in 
the bush with his light infantry. 

Presently the ridge before him swarmed with white uniforms. 
Montcalm, riding into the city about daybreak, had caught sight 
of the scarlet lines on the height. In hot haste he had Montcalm 
ordered up his regiments from the Beauport trenches. ^"^■^^^• 
The garrison of the city refused to leave their ramparts, and some 
regiments under Vaudreuil's influence were mysteriously detained. 
W^ith the rest of his force, about four thousand five hundred men, 
he formed his line of battle. His followers were full of courage. 
Mounted on his great black horse, he led them at once to the 
attack. They advanced with shouts, firing hotly as they came. 
It was then ten o'clock in the morning. On the issue of this fight 
was hanging the fate of Canada. 

The scarlet English lines and the kilted Highlanders rose up. 
They stood in ominous silence. Suddenly, when the white-coated 
columns were within forty paces of their front, there 
rang a sharp command. Out flamed the answering andwoife's 
volley, a sheet of fire. The French lines staggered, 
but rushed on intrepidly. Another shattering volley, — and when 
its smoke rolled up the French were seen broken and confused, 
so terrible had been the slaughter. While they strove desperately 
to recover formation, Wolfe gave the order to charge, himself lead- 
ing at the head of his grenadiers. Then rose the cheers of the 
English, the yells of the Highlanders, and the wild skirling of the 
bag-pipes. The French, though cut to pieces, were not beaten. 
They fired fiercely in desperate groups. A bullet shattered Wolfe's 



158 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

wrist. Another shot pierced his body, but he pressed on. Yet 
a third struck him in the breast, and he fell. Two or three of the 
men nearest him carried him toward the rear. At his entreaty 
they laid him down. As they bent over him one looked up and 
cried, " They run ! They run ! " Wolfe opened his eyes, like one 
half-awakened from a dream, and asked, "Who run?" "The 
enemy, sir!" was the exultant reply. "They 'give way every- 
where ! " The dying general gathered his strength with an effort, 
and held himself back from the brink. For that instant he saw 
clearly. " Go, tell Colonel Burton," he said, " to march Webb's 
regiment to the Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the 
bridge." Then -he whispered, " God be praised, I die in peace ! '.' 
and with a sigh the life escaped his lips. 

The rout of the French was utter. The officers by this time 
could not make their orders heard ; but a body of Canadians 
Death of distinguished themselves by making a desperate stand 

Montcalm. ^j^^^g ^j^g gj^p^ called Cote Ste. Genevieve, where 
they fought so stubbornly that Webb's advance against the bridge 
was foiled. Montcalm, desperate and furious, was carried along 
with the mass toward the city gates. A bullet passed through his 
body and he sank together in the saddle ; but two soldiers had 
seen him struck and they supported their loved leader in his seat. 
Thus he entered the gates which he had so long and well de- 
fended. When they saw him so stricken the pale throng cried 
aloud in grief and terror. Montcalm roused himself for a moment. 
" It is nothing," said he ; " do not be grieved on my account, good 
friends." Then he was carried to the house of a surgeon, — to 
die. But in his anguish he found time to send a note to the Eng- 
lish commander, begging him to protect the people he had con- 
quered. On the morning of the following day, September 14th, 
a little before daybreak, he died, and was buried in a rough box 
under the floor of the Ursuline convent. His grave was a cavity 
hollowed by the explosion of an English shell. The body of his 
great rival had a different fate. It was embalmed and carried to 
England, where the public rejoicings over Wolfe's victory were 



QUEBEC CAPITULATES. I 59 

quenched in sorrow for his death. As a fit emblem of the union 

of the two races who fought that day together for the mastery of 

Canada, stands now in Quebec a noble shaft of stone, inscribed 

to the memories of Montcalm and Wolfe. 

By Montcalm's fall the French were left leaderless. The gallant 

de Levis, Montcalm's not unworthy successor, was in Montreal. 

The feeble Vaudreuil, bold only when danger was far distant, was 

in supreme command. After a few hours of wild 

y r\ ^ i • i r ii Qucbec taken, 

uncertamty he forsook Quebec, and with a force still 

outnumbering the English retreated up the St. Lawrence to the 
impregnable stronghold of Jacques Cartier. The English mean- 
while, expecting prompt attack, were entrenching themselves on 
their victorious field. The command had fallen upon Townshend, 
Monckton being disabled by his wounds. When Townshend saw 
that the French army had fled, he was no less relieved than aston- 
ished. But he knew there were generals left, somewhere in 
Canada ; and he thought they would soon be back. The safest 
place for him then would be inside the walls of Quebec, and he 
rnade up his mind to get there without delay. To the comman- 
dant, the sturdy Ramesay, he sent a summons of immediate sur- 
render, declaring that he would otherwise take the place by storm. 
Ramesay hesitated, still hoping for the return of the vanished 
army. Townshend, with unresting energy, pushed his mines and 
his trenches ever closer to the walls. Then, on the 17th, the 
English ships drew in. A strong attacking column marched toward 
the city gates. The citizens, in terror at the threat of an assault, 
with all its pillage, flame, and butchery, demanded instant capitu- 
lation. Ramesay yielded to their prayers. The flag of truce was 
raised ; but some of the officers pulled it down. It was raised 
again, — and stayed. Townshend was generous, and granted 
honourable terms. The inhabitants he agreed to protect as if 
they were English citizens. The garrison marched out with full 
honours of war, and were sent away to France at the English cost. 
Down sank the lilied flag which had so long waved over New 
France ; and the red banner of England rose in its stead. 



l6o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

53. Quebec in English Hands. — Scarcely was the capitulation 

, . settled when messengers came to Ramesay, with word 

arrives too that de L^vis and succour were close at hand. But 

late. 

it was too late. Destiny had made her decision. 
The English now gave themselves diligently to the work of 
making their position secure. This done, and stores for the winter 
gathered in, Townshend and the fleet sailed away, leaving General 
Murray in command. In Murray the Canadians found a warm 
friend ; and English officers were loud in praise of the devotion 
Murray win- "^^i^h which the French nuns attended to the_ sick 
ters in Quebec. ^^^^^ wounded of both nations. The citizens took 
the oath of allegiance, and soon were on cordial terms with 
the English soldiers, who shared rations with them and vol- 
untarily helped them with their work. Murray planted strong 
outposts around the city, to guard every approach ; and as the 
winter wore on there were sharp skirmishes at Point Levi and 
Lorette. The garrison was daily expecting an attack in force, 
as de L^vis was known to be planning the recapture of Quebec ; 
and while they waited, sickness was decimating their ranks. 

But it was not till spring reopened the navigation of the St. 
Lawrence that de L6vis was ready to move against Quebec. All 
The battle of winter, at Montreal, he had been gathering his forces, 
e. oy. Toward the end of x'Vpril he set out, with an army of 
eight thousand men, besides Indians, sworn to recover the lost 
jewel of New France. The English outposts fell back rapidly 
before him, destroying those stores they could not save, and re- 
united with Murray in Quebec. De Levis halted at the village of 
Ste. Foy, five or six miles from the city, to arrange his plan of at- 
tack. Murray, daring to rashness and burning for renown, scorned 
to await this attack. He led out his little army, thrice outnumbered 
by that of his skilful antagonist, and hurled himself on the French 
columns as they advanced from Ste. Foy. The struggle was a mad 
one. Deeds of emulous heroism were many on the field of Ste. 
Foy. But the English had undertaken too much. Their losses 
were tremendous ; and seeing his error, Murray gave the order to 



THE FRENCH BESIEGE QUEBEC. i6l 

fall back. They obeyed, but with angry reluctance, grumbling 
" What is falling back but retreating? " De L^vis, seeing their tem- 
per, was content to accept his victory ; and the English columns, a 
thousand weaker than when they started out, withdrew into the city. 

And now Quebec was close besieged. The garrison was weak 
with sickness, and worn with ceaseless toil ; but its spirit was ex- 
cellent. Officers worked like privates, harnessing 
themselves to the gun-carriages, wielding spade and besieged by 
pickaxe, sharing every hardship with their men. De 
Levis' army was entrenched on the ridge to eastward of the Plains 
of Abraham, under a hot fire from the ramparts. Presently he got 
his siege guns in position, and a steady bombardment was kept 
up. Both sides were expecting aid by sea. The question was 
which would first arrive, the French ships or the English. One 
day a sail appeared, with no colours at the peak. The suspense 
was breathless. At last the flag of England fluttered to the mast- 
head, and the garrison went wild with joy. She was but the van- 
guard of a strong fleet, on whose arrival de L^vis hastily withdrew. 
The French ships in the river were destroyed ; but not till one 
small vessel had made so superb a defence that her captain, a 
daring officer by the name of Vauqueline, was feasted and toasted 
as a hero by his admiring conquerors. 

The failure of de L^vis robbed New France of her last hope. 
Her keys were in her enemy's hands. Nothing remained but 
Montreal. De L^vis, however, playing gallantly his 
hopeless game, guarded all the approaches. Against back on Mon- 
him moved Murray up the St. Lawrence from Quebec 
and Amherst down the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario, while in 
the centre Colonel Haviland struck hard at the line of the Riche- 
lieu. Three Rivers with its garrison was not disturbed, as its fate 
hung on that of Montreal. A few miles below Montreal Island 
Murray encamped, threatened by French armies on both sides of 
the river. There he anxiously waited for Amherst and Haviland. 
The latter came first, having cut Bougainville's lines and forced 
him to fall back without a battle. At last came Amherst, and 

M 



1 62 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

landed at Lachine, He marched down the island and encamped 
under the city's western walls. Murray at once made landing on 
the lower end of the island, while Haviland pitched his camp 
on the shore just opposite. The Canadian militia, under promise 
of Amherst's protection, now deserted and went to their homes. 
Vaudreuil and de L6vis were left to defend Montreal with about 
two thousand dispirited regulars. These were hemmed in by 
three armies, amounting in all to seventeen thousand men. Re- 
sistance was, of course, impossible ; and on the 8th of September, 
,, ^ , 1 760, Vaudreuil capitulated, including in the surrender 

Montreal and ' ' r ? & 

all Canada not Montreal alone, but the whole territory of Canada, 
capitulate. 

The French troops, save those who chose to stay, were 

sent home to France on parole, pledged not to serve against 

England during the war. To the inhabitants Amherst issued a- 

proclamation, telling them that they were now all British subjects, 

and as such to be protected in all their rights of person, property, 

and religion. General Murray was appointed governor of the 

new province. 

Canada having become a British colony, large numbers of the 
old seigneurial famihes, unwilling to hve under the flag which they 
Peace in Can- ^^^ their fathers had spent their lives in defying, went 
the'war con- ^way to France, robbing Canada of her best blood, 
tmuesabroad. -pj^^ g,._ Lawrence valley was now at peace, and striving 
to repair its losses. But the Seven Years' War still raged abroad, 
— in Europe, in India, and among the islands of the West Indies. 
Still the English triumphs went on in far-off seas, and still the great 
Frederick of Prussia made head indomitably against his svvarm- 
'ing foes. 

In Newfoundland the settlement and fort of St. John's were 

taken by a French squadron, but only to be recaptured by English 

. „ ships a few months later. Not till nearly three years 

The Seven ^ ■' ■' 

Years' War after the capitulation of Montreal did the Treaty of 
ended by the 

Treaty of Paris bring peace (Feb. loth, 1763). By this notable 

document half of North America changed hands. 

Spain yielded up Florida. France, besides great concessions in 



THE TREATY OF PARIS. 1 63 

other quarters of the globe, made over to England all her claims 
and possessions in America, excepting only the territory of Louisi- 
ana, at the Mississippi mouth. She also retained, on the condi- 
tion that they should not be garrisoned or fortified, the two little 
islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland. 
These were to be used as fishing-stations ; and she was allowed 
at the same time to retain certain fishing privileges in the Gulf 
and on Newfoundland's western shore, out of which have since 
grown innumerable difficulties, — hereafter to be known as the 
French Shore Disputes. Russia and Austria, left to fight their 
battles alone, came speedily to terms. On the day when the 
treaty was signed, France secretly gave over to Spain the remnant 
saved from the wreck of her North American possessions ; and 
Louisiana passed under the Spanish Crown. Thus ended the 
Seven Years' War, leaving England intoxicated with glory, mistress 
of the North American continent, victor in the tremendous duel 
for the empire of the New World. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SECTIONS: — 54, Population and Dwellings at the Close of 
THE French Period. 55, Dress, Arms, Social Customs, Food, 

ETC., during the FRENCH PERIOD. 

54. Population and Dwellings at the Close of the French 
Period. — When the flag of France departed from Canada, it 

left a people destined to find under the new rule a 
The people of ' ' 

Canada after fuller freedom, an ampler poHtical development, a far 
the conquest. . 

more abundant prosperity. It left a people destined 

to honour their new allegiance by loyalty and heroic service in the 
hour of trial. The spirit in which the French Canadian noblesse 
— such of them as remained in Canada — received the new rule, 
is well exemplified in the words which a French Canadian novelist ^ 
puts in the mouth of one of the old seigneurs. The seigneur, once 
an officer under the French King, is on his death-bed. To his son, 
who has left the French army and taken the oath to the English 
Crown, he says, " Serve thy new sovereign as faithfully as I have 
served the King of France ; and may God bless thee, my dear 



son 



This people, which thus became British by a campaign and a 
treaty, was destined to form the solid core around which should 
grow the vast Confederation of Canada. But for them there 
would now, in all likelihood, be no Canada. By their rejection 
of the proposals of the revolted colonies the northern half of this 
continent was preserved to Great Britain. The debt which the 
empire owes to the French Canadians is immeasurably greater 

1 Philippe Aubert de Gasp6, author of "Les Anciens Canadians." 
164 



QUEBEC. 165 

than we at present realize. Let us examine the characteristics of 
the small and isolated people which was to exercise such a deep 
influence on the future of this continent. Let us consider their 
numbers, the peculiarities of their life, their food, their dress, and 
the houses in which they dwelt. 

The whole population of Canada when she came under the 
British flag was, as we have seen, about sixty thousand. This 
hardy handful was gathered chiefly at Quebec, Three 
Rivers, and Montreal. The rest trailed thinly along 
the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu. The lands 
about the Great Lakes, and the western country, were held only 
by a few scattered forts, buried here and there in the green wilder- 
ness. At Detroit had sprung up a scanty settlement of perhaps 
one thousand souls. In these remote posts the all-important 
question was still that of the fur-trade with the Indians. The 
traders and the soldiers, cut off from civiHzation, frequently took 
wives from the Indian tribes about them, and settled down to a 
life half barbarous. These men soon grew as lawless as their 
adopted kinsfolk. They were a weakness and a discredit to the 
country in time of peace, but in war their skill and daring were 
the frontier's best defence. 

Quebec had seven thousand inhabitants. Most of them dwelt 

between the water's edge and the foot of the great cliff whose top 

was crowned by the citadel. Where the shoulder of 

Quebec, 
the promontory swept around toward the St. Charles 

the slope became more gentle, and there the houses and streets 
began to clamber toward the summit. Streets that found them- 
selves growing too precipitous had a way, then as now, of chang- 
ing suddenly into flights of stairs. The city walls, grimly bastioned, 
ran in bold zigzags across the face of the steep, in a way to daunt 
assailants. Down the hillside, past the cathedral and the college, 
through the heart of the city, clattered a noisy brook, which in 
time of freshet flooded the neighbouring streets. Part of the city 
was within walls, part without. Most of the houses were low, one- 
story buildings, with large expanse of steep roof, and high dormer 



1 66 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

windows. Along the incline leading down to the St. Charles 
stretched populous suburbs. On the high plateau where now lies 
the stately New Town, there was then but a bleak pasture-land 
whose grasses waved against the city gates. 

Three Rivers, situated at the mouth of the St. Maurice, 76 
miles above Quebec, was a small town, dwarfed politically and 
Three Rivers socially by Quebec on the one side and Montreal on 
and Montreal, ^.j^^ other. Iron mines in the neighbourhood gave it 
a measure of importance ; and it was the stopping-place for 
travellers journeying between its bigger rivals. Montreal, after 
its childhood of awful trial, had greatly prospered. Its popula- 
tion had risen to about nine thousand. The fur-trade of the 
rtiysterious North-west, developed by a succession of daring and 
tireless wood-rangers, had poured its wealth into the lap of the 
city of Maisonneuve. The houses, some of which were built of 
the light gray stone which now gives dignity to the city, were 
usually of but one story. They were arranged in three or four 
long lines parallel to the river. The towers of the Seminary of 
St. Sulpicius and the spires of three churches, standing out against 
the green of the stately mountain, were conspicuous from afar to 
voyagers coming up the river from Quebec. The city was en- 
closed by a stone wall and a shallow ditch, once useful as a defence 
against the Indians, but no protection in the face of serious 
assault. At the lower end of the city, covering the landing- 
place, rose a high earthwork crowned with cannon. The real 
defences of Montreal were the citadel of Quebec and the 
forts on Lake Champlain. Save for its threshold flood and its 
guardian mount, the Montreal of that day bore little likeness 
to the splendid city which now wears .its name and boasts of 
its traditions. 

The houses of the habitans, the tillers of the soil, were small 

cabins, humble but warm, with wide, overhanging 
The houses ' . ' _, 

of seigneurs eaves, and consistmg at most of two rooms. The par- 
and habitans. /- 1 i t 1 1 

tition, when there was one, was of boards. Lath and 

plaster were unknown. The walls within, to the height of a man's 



DWELLINGS IN NEW FRANCE. 167 

shoulders, were worn smooth by the backs that leaned against 
them. Solid wooden boxes and benches usually took the place of 
chairs. A clumsy loom, on which the women wove their coarse 
homespuns of wool or flax, occupied one corner of the main room ; 
and a deep, box-Uke cradle, always rocking, stood beside the 
ample fireplace. Over the fire stood the long black arms of a 
crane, on which was done most of the cooking ; though the 
" bake-kettle " sometimes reUeved its labours, and the brick oven 
was a stand-by in houses of the rich habitans, as well as of the 
gentry. For the roasting of meats the spit was much in use ; 
and there was a gridiron with legs, to stand on the hearth, with 
a heap of hot coals raked under it. The houses even of the 
upper classes were seldom two stories in height. But they were 
generally furnished with a good deal of luxury ; and in the 
cities they were sometimes built of stone. A typical country 
mansion, the dwelling of a seigneur on his own domain, was 
usually of the following fashion. The main building, one story 
in height but perhaps a hundred feet long, was surmounted by 
lofty gables and a very steep roof, built thus to shed the snow 
and to give a roomy attic for bedchambers. The attic was 
hghted by numerous, high-peaked dormer windows, piercing the 
expanse of the roof. This main building was flanked by one 
or more wings. Around it clustered the wash-house (adjoin- 
ing the kitchen), coach-house, barns, stable, and woodsheds. 
This homelike cluster of walls and roofs was sheltered from 
the winter storm by groves of evergreen, and girdled cheerily 
by orchard and kitchen-garden. On one side, and not far off, 
was usually a village with a church-spire gleaming over it ; on 
the other a circular stone mill, resembling a httle fortress rather 
than a peaceful aid to industry. This structure, wheie all the 
tenants of the seigneur (the censitaires) were obliged to grind 
their grain, had indeed been built in the first place to serve 
not only as a mill but as a place of refuge from the Iroquois. 
It was furnished with loopholes, and was impregnable to the 
attacks of an enemy lacking cannon. 



1 68 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

55. Dress, Arms, Social Customs, Food, etc., during the 
French Period. — The dress of the upper classes was like that 
prevailing among the same classes in France, though 
much less extravagant. The hair was worn powdered 
and in high, elaborate coiffures. Men's fashions were more 
picturesque than those of the present day. Their hair, curled, 
powdered, and sometimes tied in a queue, was surmounted by a 
graceful, low-crowned hat with caught-up brim. This head-dress 
was superseded on occasions of ceremony by the stately, three- 
cornered cocked hat. The long, wide-frocked coats were of gay- 
coloured and costly material, with lace at neck and wristbands. 
The waistcoat might be richly embroidered with gold or silver. 
Knee-breeches took the place of our unshapely trousers, and 
were fastened with bright buckles at the knee. Stockings were 
of white or coloured silk, and shoes were set off by broad buckles 
at the instep. These, of course, were the dresses of ceremony, 
the dresses seen at balls and grand receptions. Out of doors, and 
in the winter especially, the costumes of the nobility were more 
distinctly Canadian. Overcoats of native cloth were worn, with 
large, pointed hoods. Their pattern is preserved to the present 
day in the blanket coats of our snow-shoers. Young men might 
be seen going about in colours that brightened the desolate winter 
landscape. Gay belts of green, blue, red, or yellow enriched the 
waists of their thick overcoats. Their scarlet leggings were laced up 
with green ribbons. Their moccasins were gorgeously embroidered 
with dyed porcupine quills. Their caps of beaver or marten were 
sometimes tied down over their ears with vivid handkerchiefs of 
silk. The habitajis were rougher and more sombre in their dress. 
A black homespun coat, gray leggings, gray woollen cap, heavy 
moccasins of cowhide, — this grave costume was usually brightened 
by a belt or sash of the liveliest colours. The country-women had 
to content themselves wdth the same coa-se homespuns, which 
they wore in short, full skirts. But they got the gay colours which_ 
they loved in kerchiefs for their necks and shoulders. 

In war the regulars were sharply distinguished from those of 



UNIFORMS AND ARMS. 1 69 

the British army by their uniforms. The white of the House of 
Bourbon was the colour that marked their regiments, as scarlet 
marked those of the British. The militia and wood- uniforms and 
rangers fought in their ordinary dress, — or, occasion- ^''"®- 
ally, with the object of terrifying their enemies, put on the war- 
paint and eagle-quills of the Indians. The muskets of the day 
were the heavy weapons known as flint-locks. When the trigger 
was pulled the flint came down sharply on a piece of steel, and 
the spark, falling into a shallow " pan " of powder called the 
" priming," ignited the charge. The regulars carried bayonets on 
the ends of their muskets, but the militia and rangers had little 
use for these weapons. They depended on their markmanship, 
which was deadly. The regulars fired breast high in the direction 
of their enemy, trusting to the steadiness and closeness of their 
fire ; but the colonials did not waste their precious bullets and 
powder in this way. They had learned from the Indians, whom 
they could beat at their own game, to fight from behind trees, 
rocks, or hillocks, to load and fire lying down, and to surprise 
their enemies by steahng noiselessly through the underbrush. At 
close quarters they fought, like the Indians, with knife and hatchet, 
both of which were carried in their belts. From the ranger's belt, 
too, when on the march, hung the leathern bag of bullets, and the 
inevitable tobacco-pouch ; while from his neck swung a powder 
horn, often richly carved, together with his cherished pipe en- 
closed in its case of skin. Very often, however, the ranger spared 
himself the trouble of a pipe by scooping a bowl in the back of 
his tomahawk and fitting it with a hollow handle. Thus the same 
implement became both the comfort of his leisure and the tor- 
meat of his enemies. In winter, when the Canadians, expert in 
the use of the snow-shoe and fearless of the cold, did much of 
their fighting, they wore thick peaked hoods over their heads, and 
looked Hke a procession of friars wending through the silent forest 
on some errand of piety or mercy. Their hands were covered 
by thick mittens of woollen yarn, and they dragged their provisions 
and blankets on sleds or toboggans. At night they would use 



I/O 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



their snow-shoes to shovel a wide, circular pit in the snow, 
clearing it away to the bare earth. In the centre of the pit they 
would build their camp-fire, and sleep around it on piles of spruce 
boughs, secure from the winter wind. The leaders, usually mem- 
bers of the nobiUty, fared on these expeditions as rudely as their 
men, and outdid them in courage and endurance. Some of the 
most noted chiefs of the wood-rangers were scions of the noblest 
families ; and, though living most of the year the life of savages, 
were able to shine by their graces and refinement in the courtliest 
society of the day. 

The French Canadians of all classes were a social people. 
Quebec and Montreal, even when Wolfe's cannon were startling 
the hills of the St. Lawrence, found heart for the dehghts of 

dance and dinner-party. The governor and the 
Social life , . , ^^ . , • . , • 

and amuse- high oiiicials were required by etiquette to enter- 
tain with lavish generosity. Balls were kept up till 
six or seven in the morning. Conversation was a fine art 
with these sprightly and witty people. The country homes of 
the seigneurs, such as we have described, were the scene of 
many gaieties. Driving parties, picking up guests from each 
manor-house as they passed it, would gather at some hospitable 
abode. When tired of the stately dances then in fashion, the 
guests would amuse themselves with games such as now, when 
men seem less light-hearted or more self-conscious, are mostly left 
to children. Society was so limited in numbers that all the mem- 
bers of it knew each other intimately, and the merriest freedom was 
possible. "Hide the Handkerchief," "Fox and Geese," "My 
Lady's Toilet," and various games of forfeit, were among those 
that made life cheerful for the Canadians of old. Then there 
was riding in the summer ; and in winter sledging over the crisp, 
glittering snow. Baptisms, betrothals, and weddings were made 
occasions of feast; and on May-Day the hoisting of the may-pole 
in front of the seigneur's house was accompanied by much merry- 
making, — eating, drinking, bonfires, and the firing of guns. This 
feast was the affair of the habitans, who were for that day guests 



FOOD AND TABLE CUSTOMS. l/l 

of the seigneur. The may-pole, presented and erected by them, 
was a tall, peeled fir-tree, with a tuft of green left on its top, and 
surmounted by a red and green weather-cock. The whiteness of 
the peeled trunk was speedily blackened by the salutes of blank 
powder fired against it. 

During most of the year the habitant fared very plainly. A 
feast, therefore, was something to make the most of On such 
occasions he drank a good deal of brandy. Among the upper 
classes drunkenness was a disgrace, and all but un- 

Food and 

known. During the early days of the colony the table cus- 
habitans had lived chiefly on bread and eels. 
Throughout the early part of the eighteenth century they hved 
on salt meat, milk, and bread for the greater part of the year. 
But in winter fresh meat was abundant. Travelling was pleasant, 
and from Christmas to Ash Wednesday there was a ceaseless round 
of visits. Half a dozen sleighs would drive up to a habitant'' s cot- 
tage. A dozen of his friends would jump out, stable their horses, 
and flock chattering into the warm kitchen. The house-wife at 
this season was always prepared for guests. She had meats of 
various kinds roasted and put away cold. All she had to do was 
to thrust them into the hot oven, and in a few minutes the dinner 
was ready. At such times bread was despised by everybody, and 
sweet cakes took its place. When the habitans, as on May-Day, 
were feasted by their seigneur, the table was loaded with a pro- 
fusion of delicacies. Legs of veal and mutton, roasts and cutlets 
of fresh pork, huge bowls of savoury stew, pies of many kinds 
shaped like a half-moon, large tarts of jam, with doughnuts fried 
m lard and rolled in maple sugar, were among the favoured dishes. 
The habitant cared little for the seigneur's wines, because they 
did not, to use his own expression, "scratch the throat enough." 
Among the upper classes breakfast was a light meal, with white 
wine and coffee, usually taken at eight o'clock. Dinner was at 
midday, and supper at seven. Soup was always sei-ved at both 
these meals. On the great sideboard, filled with silver and china, 
which usually occupied one end of the dining-room and reached 



172 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

to the ceiling, stood cordials to encourage the appetite. In one 
corner stood a water jar of blue and white porcelain, at which 
guests might rinse their hands before going to table. The table 
was served with a great abundance of choice fish and game. Each 
person's place was supplied with napkin, plate, silver goblet, spoon, 
and fork ; but every one carried and used his own knife. Some of 
these closed with a spring, and were carried in the pocket. Others 
were worn in a sheath of morocco, of silk, or of birch-bark quaintly 
wrought with Indian designs in beads and porcupine quills. This 
sheath was generally worn hanging from the neck by an ornamental 
cord. The habitans often used a clasp-knife with no spring, which 
had to be kept open when in use by means of the thumb. To 
use such a knife was a feat requiring some practice. Among the 
dishes specially favoured by the upper classes was one of great 
size and richness, and of very elaborate construction, called the 
Easter pasty. This pasty was eaten cold. Lest it should break 
in the cooking, and so lose its flavour, the lower crust was an inch 
in thickness. The contents were nothing less than a turkey, two 
chickens, partridges, pigeons, and the thighs of rabbits, larded 
with slices of pork, embedded in balls of force-meat and onions, 
and seasoned with almost all the spices of the pantry. With such 
a dish to set before them it is no wonder that the Canadians of 
old enjoyed their banquets. To keep up the cheer of hearts that 
aids digestion, all the company sang in turn about the table, the 
ladies bearing their full share with the men. It was a happy and 
innocent life which sped in the manor-houses of the St. Lawrence, 
where the influence of Bigot and his crew was not allowed to reach. 
Though many of the seigneurs were ruined at the conquest, and 
many others left the country, those who remained kept up their 
ancient customs long after the flag of France had ceased to wave 
above Quebec ; and some of these venerated usages survive in the 
province to this day. 



SECOND PERIOD. 

ENGLISH DOMINION : — THE STRUGGLE FOR RESPON- 
SIBLE GOVERNMENT. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SECTIONS: — 56, THE Conspiracy of Pontiac. 57, the Quebec 
Act. 58, Affairs in Nova Scotia. 

56. The Conspiracy of Pontiac. — Before the Treaty of Paris 
was signed, a new trouble, arising from the sudden change of 
masters, began to brew in the west. With the fall of Montreal 
had fallen too the chain of western forts, — Michili- 

Pontiac plans 

mackinac, Detroit, PresquTle, and all the rest. The to expel the 

. English, 

western Indians at that time were largely under the 

influence of a great chieftain of the Ottawas named Pontiac. In 
force of character, subtlety, eloquence, and daring he was perhaps 
the most brilliant man the Indians of North America have pro- 
duced. Though chieftain of the Ottawas alone, he stretched his 
personal influence not only over the Ottigamies, Hurons, Sacs, 
Pottawattamies, Ojibways, and Wyandots, but even over the fierce 
Delawares and Shawanoes on the far frontiers of Virginia. Of the 
Iroquois, however, only the Senecas yielded to his spell. At first 
he accepted, reluctantly, the sovereignty of the English. But 
speedily he saw that with the end of French dominion had 
come the end of his people's importance. No longer was there 
need of the Indian alliance. No longer were the tribes to be 
propitiated with gifts and flattered with elaborate courtesy. The 
English, remembering their barbarities along the frontier, and no 

173 



174 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

longer obliged to think of policy, treated them with contemptuous 
indifference. Their mightiest chiefs received little more attention 
than the old women or naked children. To Pontiac's haughty- 
spirit this treatment was intolerable. He saw that the Indians 
must either be swamped in the westward flowing torrent of the 
pale-faces, or else give up their ancient inheritance and flee deeper 
into the wilderness. Neither of these things could he accept. 
Utterly mistaking the English power, he conceived the design of 
uniting all the Indians against them, and scourging them out of 
the country. In this audacious scheme he was encouraged by cer- 
tain of the French fur-traders, who told him that the King of France, 
at last stirred up to vengeance, was sending out a host to annihilate 
his foes. And the merchants of New Orleans secretly urged him 
on. 

The conspiracy was well organized. The outbreak was timed 
fbr the yth day of May, 1763, — three months after the Treaty 
of Paris was signed. Pontiac himself was to surprise Detroit, the 
The Indian Strongest of the western forts. But the plot was re- 
nsmg. vealed by a young squaw to Major Gladwyn, the com- 

mandant. On the morning of the yth, Pontiac, with a band of 
chiefs, came to the fort on the pretence of seeking a conference. 
Each conspirator carried under his blanket a rifle with the barrel 
cut short. They were received by the English troops drawn up 
in battle array. Showing no sign of his discomfiture, Pontiac de- 
spatched some business and withdrew. Next morning he came 
again, but was ordered away from the gates. Then he knew 
that his plot was discovered. At once the flame of Indian war 
blazed all along the west. Detroit was vigilantly besieged ; and 
a detachment of troops from Niagara, sent out to relieve it, was 
surprised and cut to pieces. Sandusky, PresquTle, du Boeuf, 
Venango, were taken and destroyed. The frontiers of Pennsyl- 
vania, Maryland, and Virginia ran with the blood of the settlers. 
From Detroit the garrison made a fierce sortie against Pontiac's 
entrenchments. To reach the enemy's position, which was wisely 
placed, the soldiers had to cross a narrow bridge spanning a water- 



PONT I AC'S OVERTHROW. 175 

course. Once over, they were met by a fire so deadly and an 
attack so intrepid that they were driven back in confusion. So 
great was the slaughter that the bridge has borne the name of 
" Bloody Bridge " from that day. Further to the north, Pontiac's 
followers got possession of Michilimackinac by a stratagem. All 
unsuspicious of danger, the officers were invited out of the fort 
to watch the Ojibway braves play a game of lacrosse. It was the 
4th of June, King George's birthday ; and the game, with shrewd 
irony, was declared to be in his honour. Skilfully it was played 
for hours, the amused officers betting on the result. Meanwhile 
the gates were open. A number of squaws, with weapons under 
their blankets, wandered in. At last, apparently in the course of 
the game, the ball was driven against the palisades. Down rushed 
the players in a body. Then, with a yell, they dashed through the 
open gates, and seized their weapons. Before the astonished 
garrison could awake from their amazement fifteen of them had 
fallen under the hatchet, and the rest lay helpless in their bonds. 
In the middle of the summer Colonel Henry Bouquet, an officer 
of high sagacity and courage, was sent out from Philadelphia to 
relieve the western frontier and reinforce Fort Pitt. The rising 
After a hard fight he defeated the Delawares and ^"^^i^^- 
Shawanoes in the battle of Bushy Run, or, as it is sometimes 
called, Edge Hill. After this reverse some of Pontiac's allies, 
growing discouraged, began to desert him. In the next year 
(1764), Colonel Bradstreet, the victor of Fort Frontenac, was sent 
to relieve Detroit and chastise Pontiac. He accomplished his 
first object, and received the submission of some of the hostile 
tribes. But his expedition Avas ill conducted and his treatment 
of the Indians ill advised throughout. He let himself be fooled 
by idle promises ; and Pontiac, falling back before a superior 
force, kept up his depredations further west. Not until 1766, 
when the vigorous presence of Sir William Johnson had undone 
the effects of Bradstreet's folly, did Pontiac finally submit. His 
submission carried with it that of every hostile tribe, and brought 
instant peace to the frontiers. A year later, at the trading-post 



176 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

of Cahokia on the Mississippi, this truly great leader of his race 
was killed by an Illinois brave in some private quarrel. 

57. The Quebec Act. — ■ During the period from the capture of 

Canada in 1760 to its final cession in 1763, the country was under 

mihtary government, — a despotism indeed, but exercised with 

such forbearance on the part of the conquerors that the conquered 

found little to complain of. After the Treaty of Paris 

English ^ ^ 

settlers flock was signed, the people were told that as soon as 

into Canada. o ? 1 1 

the affairs of the country could be arranged they 
should have representative institutions like those in the Enghsh 
colonies. With this prospect in view EngUsh settlers flocked into 
Canada. They received liberal grants of land, on the easy tenure 
of what is known as " free soccage." Of this tenure the only 
conditions are allegiance to the Crown and obedience to the laws. 
It was understood, however, that after a period of ten years the 
holders of these easy grants were to be subject to small "quit- 
rents," — so called because by the payment of such rents the 
grantees were acquitted from the duty of rendering feudal service 
to the Crown. The government was placed in the hands of a 
governor and council ; and English law, with its essential principle 
of trial by jury, took the place of French law. 

Over this change of the law there arose at once a difficulty 
between the " old subjects," as the English settlers who had just 

moved into the province were called, and the " new 
English set- ^ 

tiers object to subjects," or French Canadians. The Enghsh settlers 

French law. ^ ^ 

were inclined to be arrogant toward their neighbours, 
as toward a conquered people. In their eyes, too, English law 
was the only righteous law, and the principle of trial by jury the 
supreme safeguard of their liberties. To this principle, when 
applied in criminal cases, the French did not object ; and they 
valued their new security from being imprisoned without trial ; 
but to bringing mere civil cases before a jury they had strong 
objection. They complained that the process was tedious and 
expensive, — a serious drawback in the eyes of a people who 
loved to go to law over every dispute. They urged, too, not 



LAND TENURE AND MORTGAGE. IJJ 

without reason, that they wished their differences settled by men 
whose business it was to know the law and interpret it, rather 
than by men called in suddenly from the desk, the counter, or 
the plough, and impatient to get back to business. To the Eng- 
lish immigrants, on the other hand, certain sections of the French 
law were excessively distasteful. These were the sections gov- 
erning sale and purchase of land, mortgage, and marriage. 

By the seigneurial tenure the purchaser of land in a seigneury 
was compelled to pay to the seigneur the lods ei vents, already 
referred to, which were an amount equal to a twelfth Difficulties in 
of the purchase-money, besides the full sum paid to chlse^and'"' 
the seller. As this tax was chargeable not only on sale of land, 
the value of the land, but also on all buildings and improvements, 
which, while costing the seigneur nothing, were often far more 
valuable than the land itself, it was considered by the English 
settlers an intolerable handicap. 

The French law of mortgage exposed the new-comer to still 
greater hardships. By this law, when a man mortgaged his land 
in security for a loan the transaction was a secret one. in regard to 
Thus a man might mortgage his farm many times over, "^o^gage. 
and then quietly sell it. The unhappy purchaser would presently 
see his property taken from him and sold to satisfy the claims of 
those holding the mortgages. Instances of this sort were not nu- 
merous, indeed ; but very few were needed to make the " old sub- 
jects " cry out, and demand a public registration of all mortgages. 

In regard to the property-rights conferred on the wife at mar- 
riage, there were provisions in the French law which English set- 
tlers, marrying in ignorance of them, found peculiarly exasperating. 
The wife, by French law, had two claims upon her husband's prop- 
erty, the one of "dower" and the other of "partnership." The 
former gave her, in case of her husband's death, half of all his 
real estate ; the latter gave her, even during his hfetime, half of 
all his personal property. It was in regard to this claim of part- 
nership that the difficulty arose, for if the wife died before the 
husband, this share of hers went at once to her children, or, chil- 



178 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

dren failing, to her nearest relatives. Thus a man might find half 
of his personal property suddenly taken from him and handed 
over to strangers. Such a contingency could be guarded against 
only by a formal contract made before the marriage. 

Over these differences, and others of like nature, there was 
more or less dispute in Canada during the ten years following the 
conquest ; but the country increased in wealth and population 
more rapidly than it had ever done before, and the " new sub- 
jects" were for the most part well content. By General Murray, 
The Quebec their first governor, they were held in high esteem ; 
Act passed. ^^^ j^jg guccessor. Sir Guy Carleton, greatly prefer- 
ring them to the more turbulent British settlers, favoured them in 
every way that the law would permit. It was mainly owing to his 
enthusiasm for the French Canadian population that the famous 
"Quebec Act" of 1774 was passed by the British Parliament. 
This act extended the limits of the province southward to the 
Ohio and westward to the Mississippi. And instead of giving 
Canada a representative legislature, as the " old subjects " eagerly 
demanded, it placed the government wholly in the hands of the 
governor and council. The most important and far-reaching pro- 
vision of the Quebec Act, however, was that by which the French 
Civil Law was restored, and the Roman Catholic rehgion estab- 
lished, thus making Canada in all but name a French colony, 
though under the English Crown. This settled the question 
as to whether the French Canadians should be swallowed up 
by their English fellow-countrymen, or, retaining their language 
and individuality, should develop side by side with them. The 
question was debated hotly on the floor of the British House of 
Commons ; and the decision, so gratifying to the sentiments and 
aspirations of a proud race like the French Canadians, was influ- 
enced perhaps more by policy than by any considerations of 
abstract justice. The Enghsh colonies, freed at last from the 
menace of the French power on their borders, were banding 
themselves together against the motherland. English statesmen 
turned their eyes with ever-increasing esteem upon their new 



AFFAIRS IN NOVA SCOTIA. 1 79 

subjects in the north, — an obedient people, trained in loyalty, 
with Church and King supreme in all their traditions. 

58. Affairs in Nova Scotia. — While events were maturing and 
changing so rapidly along the St. Lawrence valley, Nova Scotia 
was slowly healing her scars and settling down to steady progress. 
Nova Scotia was now a vast territory, including all of what are 
now New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. 

First Parha- 

Along the Gulf coast, about the mouths of the Richi- ment of Nova 

° ' Scotia. 

bucto, Miramichi, Nepisiguit, and Restigouche rivers, 
the scenes of Cartier's first visit to the mainland, stood thriving 
Acadian settlements which had escaped the decree of exile. 
These settlements, during the latter years of the war, suffered 
terribly from famine, pestilence, and the attacks of English ships. 
When Quebec fell, many villages sent in their submission to 
the English at Fort Lawrence, begging and receiving grants 
of food to help them through the winter. In July of 1760, 
just two months before Montreal capitulated, a French fleet 
lying in the mouth of the Restigouche River, off the village of 
Petite Rochelle, was discovered by Commodore Byron, sailing 
from Louisburg with five English ships. The battle that took 
place resulted in the destruction of Petite Rochelle, and in the 
sinking or capture of the whole French fleet. This fight in the 
Restigouche mouth was the closing battle of the war. After 
the fall of Montreal the Indians sent their representatives to 
Fort Frederick, at the mouth of the St. John, to take the oath of 
allegiance to George III, and to renew a treaty which they had 
made with the Enghsh in 1726. Meanwhile upon all the loyal 
inhabitants of the great Acadian province had been conferred 
that badge of Anglo-Saxon freedom, representative government. 
In October, 1758, the Parliament of Nova Scotia met at Halifax. 
This was the first representative assembly ever convened on Cana- 
dian soil. It consisted of twenty-two members, representing the 
districts of Halifax, Annapolis, Dartmouth, Lunenburg, and Cum- 
berland. Under the stimulus of this change settlers began to 
come in from the hill districts of New England, exchanging their 



l8o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

rocky farms for the rich meadow-lands of the CornwalHs, Annap- 
oHs, Avon, and Shubenacadie valleys. The population of Nova 
Scotia was increased by over seven thousand of these New Eng- 
land immigrants, between 1759 and 1763. Pioneers from Penn- 
sylvania, and afterwards from the Highlands of Scotland, formed 
a settlement which they called Pictou, on the shores of Northum- 
berland Strait. 

About the same time a band of New Englanders from Massa- 
chusetts took up a track of fertile land on the St. John River about 
New Eng- the mouth of the Oromocto, and called their settlement 
on^thrst^"^^ Maugerville. Soon afterwards the greater part of what 
John River. -g ^^^ New Brunswick was made the county of Sun- 
bury in the province of Nova Scotia. Many of these pioneers at 
Pictou and at Maugerville endured great hardships, from the fail- 
ure of crops and from the severe weather that came upon them 
before they were ready to meet it. There was then an Acadian 
settlement at St. Anne's Point, where now stands Fredericton. 
This little French village formed a reminder of the days when 
the capital of all Acadia was Villebon's rude fort at the mouth 
of the Nashwaak River opposite. Acadian settlers, too, clustered 
on the rich meadows about the Keswick mouth, ten miles above 
Fredericton. 

Prince Edward Island, then called by the old name which its 
illustrious discoverer, John Cabot, had given it, — the Island of 
St. John, — had but a scanty population, in spite of 
SMohnrnow i^s fertile soil and inexhaustible fisheries. At the 
ward^iSand ^^^^^ ^^ *^^ ^naX Capture of Louisburg in 1758, when 
ratepr^vince' *^^^ island came into English hands, it had but four or 
five thousand inhabitants, many of whom were Aca- 
dians of Beaus^jour and Minas, who had fled at the time of the 
Great Exile. After the Treaty of Paris a careful survey was made 
of the island. Not only were its area and resources investigated, 
but plans were elaborated for its speedy settlement and develop- 
ment. The old French station of Port la Joie was selected as 
the capital, and received the name of Charlottetown. In 1767 



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. l8l 

the whole of the island was granted to English officers and others, 
at small quit-rents, on condition that each grantee should within 
the next four years bring in one actual settler for every two 
hundred acres of his grant. The vast estates thus lightly gained 
were as lightly valued. Sometimes they were sold for a trifle, 
sometimes they were gambled away, till almost all this " Garden 
of the Gulf" was in the hands of a few indifferent proprietors, 
many of whom dwelt in England and disregarded the terms on 
which they had received their great possessions. This state of 
affairs was a grievous drawback to the growth of the island ; and 
later on, as we shall see, it led to serious evils. At the request 
of the new proprietors,- the island, with its little handful of colo- 
nists, was separated from Nova Scotia and erected into a separate 
province. This took place in 1770; and Colonel Walter Patter- 
son was made first governor, with a small salary, and with such 
a variety of duties as few governors have been asked to perform. 
He came with a full staff of officials, their stipends to be judged 
from that of his attorney-general, which was fixed at one hundred 
pounds a year. Small as it was, it proved for some time more 
than he could collect. Undaunted by lack of population, and of 
many other things usually considered requisite to a full-fledged 
province, provision was quickly made for an elective assembly, 
which was duly convened and held its first session in 1773. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SECTIONS : — 59, Trouble brewing between England and the 
Thirteen Colonies. 6o, the War begun, and Canada in- 
vaded BY the Revolutionists. 6i, the Revolting Colonies 
achieve their Independence. 

59. Trouble brewing between England and the Thirteen Col- 
onies. — Hardly had the bonfires that hailed the conquest of 
Canada died out in the market-places of Boston, Philadelphia, and 
The growth New York, hardly were the paeans of loyal rejoicing 
tion^in tte" hushed in colonial throats, ere began that unhappy dis- 
coionies. p^^g which ended in the rupture of our race. When the 

Treaty of Paris was signed, there were shrewd observers in Europe 
who said that in driving France out of North America England 
had thrown away her strongest hold upon her colonies. In fact, 
no sooner did the colonies cease to need the strong arm of the 
mother country, than they also ceased to remember that they owed 
her anything. When the bugbear of French invasion no longer 
terrified them, they clung no longer to the mother's skirt. No 
longer occupied in fighting the enemy at their gates, they turned 
their turbulent energies to fighting the officers of the King, the 
regulations of ParUament. That they had bitter grievances the 
most hostile historian must allow. But that these grievances were 
sufficient to justify them in setting their swords to the throat of 
the motherland, — this is what no fair critic can grant. That 
motherland had just been fighting their battles, pouring out her 
blood and treasure lavishly to rid them of their foes. The Seven 
Years' War, as far as England was concerned, was purely a war 

182 



COLONIAL GRIEVANCES. 1 83 

for the colonies. In this imperial cause she burdened herself 
with a debt that was in those days held appalling. It was not to 
be wondered at that she should expect the colonies to contribute 
something toward the payment of this debt. The only way in 
which they could be called on to contribute seemed to be through 
the medium of taxes. On the other hand, the colonies were 
without representation in the Imperial Parliament, and one of the 
dearest principles of British liberty was that there should be no 
taxation without representation. The position was plainly one 
that required tact and tenderness on both sides ; but, alas, no tact 
or tenderness was shown on either. The British government was 
bitterly aggrieved at the ingratitude of the colonists in seeking 
to evade their share of the war-debt. The colonists grew to 
believe that their most sacred rights were being trampled, their 
manhood contemptuously ignored. Their smouldering wrath, 
fanned by agitators and demagogues who now strut as patriots 
across the page of history, flamed out at last in open rebellion. 
True patriots indeed there were in the American colonies ; and 
in both the loyalist and revolutionary parties they were to be 
found. Among them towers preeminent the figure of Washington, 
whose clear sincerity, dauntless courage, and self-sacrificing devo- 
tion to his country command the reverence of friend and foe 
alike. But Washington, and those like Washington, did not go 
about to stir up the conflagration, while at the same time profess- 
ing unquenchable loyalty to England ! They, on the contrary, 
sought a common ground of reconciliation, in a removal of just 
grievances on both sides. But on both sides, alas, prevailed the 
counsels of the rash and blind. 

Let us glance hastily at some of the grievances of which the 
colonies complained. These chiefly had regard to customs du- 
ties and interference with trade. For the benefit of colonial 
British merchants, British manufacturers, and British snevances. 
ship-builders, colonial shipping was kept down by severe naviga- 
tion laws^ colonial manufactures were strangled by ingenious 
prohibitions, and colonial commerce was allowed to flow into 



184 A HIS 7^ OR Y OF CANADA. 

none but British ports. The great products of the country — 
furs, hides, cotton, indigo, tobacco, sugar — could be sold only 
to Great Britain ; and none but British ships were allowed in the 
colonial harbours. Of course, as a result of such regulations, an 
immense deal of smuggling went on. This proved very profitable 
to the colonists. When England undertook to suppress it, there 
was resistance at once. In a foolish hour the British government 
determined to employ the King's army and the King's navy in the 
work of revenue collecting. The royal uniforms thus became 
associated in the popular mind with all that was' most hateful to 
it, — with the collection of taxes deemed unjust, and with the exe- 
cution of laws held tyrannical. The British troops had already 
made themselves very unpopular with the colonists by their over- 
bearing attitude, and by the supercilious contempt which they 
displayed toward the colonial militia, who were man for man 
their equals. In fact it has been said that the seeds of the revolu- 
tion were sown by the ill-bred arrogance of British ofificers, who 
made themselves hateful to all the colonial troops. 

But among the events which stand out as direct causes of the 

revolution, none loom darker than the Stamp Act and the Tea 

Tax. The Stamp Act (1763) required that all contracts, deeds, 

wills, and such like written agreements between man and man 

should carry government stamps in order to be legal. 

The stamp ,• , 1 

Act and the The tax was a light one, but it reached into everv 

X63. X3.X cj ^ 

concern of life. It forced itself upon the attention 
of every colonist. It was a frank assertion of the claim of the 
Imperial Parliament to tax British subjects not represented in 
that Parliament. The act was both improper and impolitic. 
Wise statesmen, like Pitt, spoke fervently against it, but in 
vain. Then from- end to end of the Atlantic seaboard rose 
fierce protests. Mobs gathered to resist, and collectors were so 
roughly handled that they resigned their offices in terror. The 
storm deepened so ominously that, at the eleventh hour, the 
ministry bowed before it, and repealed the tax (1766). There- 
upon the colonies sank back into an uneasy quiet. It was the 



THE WAR BEGINS. 1 85 

quiet of a slumbering volcano. The next false move of Parliament 
was a bill to tax all tea brought into colonial ports. Again blazed 
forth the anger of the colonists. Boston was the centre of the 
popular indignation. A revenue cutter was attacked and burned. 
A merchant caught selling Enghsh goods was stoned in the streets. 
The very preachers from their pulpits stirred up the people to in- 
surrection. Then came the childish farce of the " Boston Tea 
Party" (1773), when a band of Boston citizens, disguised as 
savages, boarded a British ship and emptied her cargo of tea 
into the waters. This, of course, was a dehberate felony, none 
the less criminal because ridiculous ; but it is sometimes held up 
to admiration as a dignified and patriotic protest against unjust 
taxation ! The angry home government retorted by closing the 
port of Boston and withdrawing the charter of Massachusetts. 

War seemed by this time very near. A Continental Congress, 
to devise means of mutual support, was therefore summoned. It 
met at Philadelphia (1774). An address of heated protest was 
forwarded to the King. One of the grievances of the 

° ° The First and 

colonies was alleged to be the passing of the Quebec Second Con- 
Act. This establishment of a Roman Catholic province 
in the north was declared to be an intolerable menace to the 
Protestant colonies. In the following year the Congress met again 
at Philadelphia (May, 1775). An urgent appeal was now made 
to Nova Scotia and Quebec, calling on them to join their sister 
provinces in withstanding British tyranny. But the message fell 
on deaf ears. In the address to Canada the Roman Catholic 
population was flattered and caressed in a way strangely at 
variance with the words of the previous year. The sagacious 
ecclesiastics of Quebec must have smiled at the contrast. 

60. The War begun, and Canada invaded by the Revolutionists. 
— Meanwhile, some weeks before the meeting of the second 
Congress, swords had been crossed and the war begun. BUnd 
intolerance had had its way on both sides. General Gage, 
military governor at Boston, had sent out a detachment to seize 
some rebel stores at the village of Lexington (April 19, 1775). 



1 86 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

This force had been surrounded by a swarm of " Minute Men," 

— as the mihtia about Boston were called, from the fact that they 

were ready for duty at a minute's notice. The Eng- 

Lexington . ° 

and Bunker ]ish soldiers were driven back to the city with heavy 

Hill. . . -^ 

loss, but not till they had accompHshed their errand 

and destroyed the stores. Then, two months later, came the 

battle of Bunker Hill. This, contrary to the general notion, was 

a British victory, — but it was a costly one. Twice were the royal 

troops repulsed with loss, before they succeeded in carrying the 

enemy's position. The rebels made a brave stand, but in the end 

were utterly defeated ; and their defeat is commemorated by a 

trophy which stands on the citadel at Quebec. It is one of the 

cannon which the British columns captured at Bunker Hill. 

In the name of the United Colonies a continental army was now 

enrolled. Its professed aim was not to seek independence, but 

to secure redress of grievances. The Continental Congress, then 

in session at Philadelphia, decided that if Canada 

Canada 

invaded by did not thirst for the blessings of liberty, these bless- 

the rebels. 

ings must be thrust upon her. It was resolved to 
capture Canada before reinforcements from England could be 
poured in. That redoubtable rebel, Colonel Ethan Allen, with a 
band of his Vermont Rangers, or " Green Mountain Boys," had 
surprised the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The old 
war-path into Canada lay open. An army of three thousand men 
under General Montgomery was sent against Montreal by way of 
the Richelieu ; while Colonel Benedict Arnold, with a force of 
twelve hundred, made his way up the Kennebec and down the 
Chaudiere toward Quebec. To defend Canada against these two 
invasions the governor, Sir Guy Carleton, had only about four 
hundred regulars, and some five hundred and fifty French Cana- 
dian volunteers. The habitans, for the most part, were deter- 
mined to remain neutral. They had had enough of fighting to 
last them for a generation. In spite of the appeals of their clergy. • 
the persuasions and commands of the seigneurs, they refused to 
respond to the governor's call for aid. Nevertheless we may say 



QUEBEC ATTACKED. 1 8/ 

that to them we owe this Canada ; for without the few hundred 
French Canadians who did rally to the British flag, and without 
the obstinate neutrality of their countrymen, Quebec must have 
fallen. By refusing to join the rebels the habitans fought Eng- 
land's battle. 

To Sir Guy Carleton, also, we owe a debt that is never to be 
forgotten. But for his unconquerable energy the invaders must 
have triumphed. They forced the passage of the 

Richelieu, captured the forts of St. John's and Cham- Carieton at 

. Quebec, 

bly, and took possession of Montreal. Carleton fled 

in disguise to Quebec, narrowly escaping capture, and there made 

ready for his last stand. In Quebec he weeded out all those citizens 

who sympathized with the rebels, expelling them from the city. 

From among the loyal remnant he was able to enroll some hundreds 

of hardy volunteers. With sixteen hundred men at his back — a 

small force indeed, but to be trusted — he awaited the struggle. 

When Arnold, after a daring and terrible journey through the 
winter wilds, arrived at Quebec, he came under the walls and 
called upon the city to surrender. He was answered from the 
mouth of a cannon. Thereupon he withdrew, and formed his 
camp on the Plains of Abraham. A little later he was Arnold before 
joined by Montgomery from Montreal. Quebec was Q'^®''^*^- 
then closely besieged ; but the position of the besiegers, as, the 
rigour of winter settled in, became bitterly trying. They were 
chagrined at their failure to seduce the French Canadians. They 
knew that if the siege dragged on till spring they might expect a 
British fleet to relieve Quebec. In this strait they resolved on 
a desperate venture. 

It was the last night of the year 1775. In thick dark and a 
driving storm they crept up to take the city by assault. While a 
feigned attack was made on the walls over against the 

. . , , ° The double 

Plains of Abraham, two assaulting columns moved assault on 

Quebec. 

secretly upon the Lower Town. Once let the streets 

be gained, and they trusted to scale the walls to the Upper Town. 

One column, led by Arnold, approached from the side of the 



1 88 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

St. Charles, through the suburb of St. Roch's. After a hot fight, 
in which Arnold was wounded, the assailants carried the two-gun 
battery which guarded the entrance, and forced their way into the 
city. With flame, and steel, and yells, raged the battle through 
the streets, till there came a body of troops from the Upper Town. 
Falling upon the rear of the invaders, they captured about four 
hundred, and drove the rest in headlong flight. 

The second assaulting column, led by Montgomery himself, 
came down the St. Lawrence shore from Wolfe's Cove, and 
Defeat of sought to enter the city by a narrow path where now 
andd^aTh'of ^uns Champlain Street. At the head of this path 
Montgomery, g^^^^ g^^^.^ ^ company of Canadians. They had a 
small cannon, loaded with grape, pointing directly up the path. 
The enemy stole forward in the darkness, till they thought them- 
selves near enough, and then made a rush to overpower the guard. 
But in their faces belched a roaring flame, and a close volley of 
grape mowed down the head of their column. Among the slain 
were Montgomery himself and his two aides. Leaving their sud- 
den dead on the field, where the falHng snow soon covered them, 
the assailants fled in a panic. In the morning the bodies were 
brought into the city. That of Montgomery was cared for with 
special consideration ; and the place of his burial, in the St. Louis 
bastion, was marked with a cut stone. The dead leader, slain so 
piteously in darkness and defeat, was a brave and humane officer 
whose memory is respected by his foes. His death was in strik- 
ing contrast to that of his adored master, the heroic Wolfe. It is 
a strange coincidence that both Montgomery, the invader of Can- 
ada, and Carleton, her defender, had fought under Wolfe in his last 
campaign, and made him their exemplar as a soldier and as a man. 

After this disastrous repulse the enemy contented themselves 

with keeping the city under strict blockade. Toward 
The Amen- . 

cans driven spring reinforcements arrived, and they pressed the 
outof Canada. \ ^ ' . . 

siege. But before they could accomplish anything the 
garrison was cheered by the sight of British ships in the St. Law- 
rence. The invaders hastily retired. Carleton sallied out upon their 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 189 

rear, captured their artillery, and turned their retreat into a head- 
long rout. A few weeks later a little band of regulars and Indians, 
descending from the western forts to help in the defence of Can- 
ada, attacked and captured a body of four hundred Americans at 
the rapids of "The Cedars" on the St. Lawrence. This was in 
May of 1776. In June the Americans sent a force to attack 
Three Rivers. They were met by an equal force of Canadians 
and regulars. The battle was sharp, but the invaders were routed. 
Reinforcements were now flowing into Canada ; and the Ameri- 
can troops, giving way at all points, abandoned Montreal. They 
fell back on Lake Champlain. There, for a time, a small fleet 
gave them control of the situation. But during the summer the 
British built an opposing squadron. By autumn it was afloat ; 
and then was fought a hot battle for the mastery of the lake. 
The fleet of the revolutionists was destroyed. Thereupon they 
blew up the grim ramparts of Crown Point, and left the lake in 
English hands. Carleton drew his entrenchments at Isle au Noix ; 
and once more the inland gates of Canada were barred against 
the enemy. 

61. The Revolting Colonies achieve their Independence. — The 
invaders having been beaten back from the bounds of Canada, 
the rest of the war is not a part of Canadian history ; but its 
results were of such vital importance to us that the struggle must 
be briefly outlined here. In 1776 the congress at The colonies 
Philadelphia issued what is known as the " Declaration seives^inde™" 
of Independence." So many of the colonists remained p^^^^^"*- 
loyal that the struggle now became a civil war. Brother fought 
against brother, father against son. Conspicuous among the 
loyaHsts were the Iroquois, who were held faithful to the Royal 
cause by the influence of Sir William Johnson. Washington dis- 
played great judgment in avoiding pitched battles between his 
untrained militia and the disciplined forces of the Crown. By his 
persistency and patience he gradually drove the English back 
from point to point, without ever defeating them in the field. 
On Long Island the English in fair fight drove the revolutionists 



IQO 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



before them, and might have destroyed the whole continental 
army but for the inertness of the commander-in-chief, Lord Howe. 
Howe then advanced from New York, defeated Washington at the 
battle of the Brandywine, and occupied Philadelphia ; where he 
wintered and amused himself. 

In this same year a force of about eight thousand regulars, with 
a thousand Indian alhes, was gathered in Canada under General 
Burgoyne, for the purpose of ascending Lake Champlain, capturing 
Albany, descending the Hudson to New York, and thus cutting 
the revolution in two. The enterprise failed disastrously. The 
colonial militia swarmed hke hornets about the line of 

Burgoyne 's 

disaster at march, shutting off supplies, and harassing the English 

Saratoga. . _, , ■,■ ^ t ■ n i i 

at every pomt. Burgoyne s little army dwmdled day 
by day, — disease, desertion, and the bullets of the sharpshooters 
eating away his ranks, till he had less than six thousand men left 
in his command. He fell back in despair on Saratoga. Here 
he was surrounded by General Gates with a much superior force, 
and was compelled to surrender. 

This was an overwhelming triumph for the revolutionists. 
And now came the hour for France. She hungered to avenge the 
defeats of the last war. She recognized the revolted colonies as 

an independent and sovereign state, and took up arms 
attacked by in their support. England straightway found herself 

France and , , "^ ^ J^ ,, . . , , 

other Euro- involved m a European war. Holland thought the 
hour was come to humiliate her ancient rival. Spain 
joined in, hoping to win back Gibraltar. It was the hour for 
England's enemies, of whatever race or clime. French leaders 
and French sympathy were a tower of strength to the revolution- 
ists, while yet their fate hung in the balance. When England's 
hands were thus fettered by her entanglements in Europe, it was 
clear that she could not subdue the colonies. Though continually 
beaten in fair field, defeat but made the revolutionists more for- 
midable. In England, too, there was a strong party which bitterly 
opposed the war. There were statesmen of power and wisdom 
who thought the rebel provinces not wholly in the wrong, and who 



YORKTO WN. 



191 



wished to let them go in peace. But the King was obstinate. 
The war dragged on, with the greatest vindictiveness on both 
sides, but with no great actions. Lord Howe resigned, and was 
succeeded by Sir Henry Clinton, who pushed the war with more 
alacrity. He seized Charleston ; and his lieutentant, Lord Corn- 
walHs, gaining several victories in quick succession, forced the 
rebelHon in the South to hide its head (1781). Soon afterwards, 
however, the colonials won a pitched battle, defeating the famous 
loyahst leader, Tarleton, at " the Cowpens." 

At length there fell upon the English the overwhelming disas- 
ter of Yorktown. New York was menaced by a combined attack 
of French and revolutionists. Cornwallis evacuated Charleston 
and hastened northward to help Clinton. Threatened by greatly 
superior numbers, he halted and entrenched himself at York- 
town, on a neck of land jutting out into Chesapeake Bay. Here, 
expecting the arrival of a British fleet, he felt himself secure. 
But the fleet that came was that of France, and he found him- 
self hopelessly entrapped. Four times outnumbering his own 
force, the French and American armies under Rochambeau and 
Washington shut him in to landward. The French 

° Cornwallis 

broadsides commanded his water-front. He could capitulates 

at Yorktown. 
either starve or capitulate. He capitulated. This was 

the end of the struggle, because the British people would fight no 
longer, nor suffer the King to prolong a war in which their hearts 
were not engaged. 

Any clear observer could see that England was not beaten by 
the revolutionists. But little of her vast power had been put 
forth in America, That she was not exhausted was promptly 
shown by the vigour with which she now turned on England ac- 
her foreign foes, humbhng them swiftly by land and the°inde^e^n- 
sea. A tithe of this obstinate energy, displayed on urdted"***^^ 
American fields, must have crushed even Washington's states, 
tireless courage. In the following year (1782) England acknowl- 
edged the independence of the Americans. She made over to her 
triumphantly rebellious children all those vast regions stretching 



192 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

from the western boundaries to the Pacific, — a generosity which 
was far from palatable to France and Spain. France had helped 
the colonies, not for the love she bore them, but because she 
hoped through them to cripple her great adversary and win back 
some portion of her New World empire. But all she got in the 
end was humiliation and debt. French Canada, prosperous and 
favoured under Enghsh rule, remained faithful to English alle- 
giance ; and the realm of the fertile west was placed forever 
beyond French grasp. The claws of the lion's cub were now 
closed upon that prize more jealously than those of the old lion 
had ever been. 

Canada, after the repulse of the invasion, had heard but the 
distant mutterings of the dread storm in the south. The brave 
and politic governor. Sir Guy Carleton, had resigned in 1777, 
seeking active service, and feeling confident that the wave of 
war would not again break over the Canadian frontier. He was 
Echoes of the Succeeded by General Haldimand, whose harshness 
Maritime ^ made him somewhat unpopular. This severity, how- 
Provinces. ever, was not without wholesome effect on the rebel 
emissaries who sought to seduce the Canadians from their alle- 
giance. In Nova Scotia such emissaries met at first with a 
measure of success. Some people of Maugerville, on the St. John 
River, foolishly lent ear to them, and were led by one Colonel 
Eddy to make an attack on Fort Cumberland.^ This enterprise 
failed ignominiously ; but the Maugervillians tried to console them- 
selves by seizing a brig that lay in the Missiguash. The prize 
was sold in an American port. Their exploit, however, brought 
them neither glory nor gain ; for the government made them pay 
the owners of the brig its full value, and then forgave them, with 
a warning to indulge in no more such escapades. The Indians, 
too, of the St. John River and the Gulf shore put on war-paint 
under persuasion from Boston, and some of them took part in 
the expedition against Fort Cumberland. But a mixture of firm- 

1 Formerly Beausejour. 



TREATY OF VERSAILLES. 



193 



ness, gifts, and flattery converted them into loyal subjects. At 
the St. John mouth, under the walls of Fort Frederick, then 
without a garrison, stood a small fishing settlement. A band of 
marauders from the port of Machias in Maine wiped out both fort 
and settlement. The infant settlement of Charlottetown, and the 
coasts of Bay Chaleur, were ravaged by American privateers. 
Many of these privateers were mere pirates, without privateering 
license, and their outrages were sharply condemned by the rebel 
Colonel John Allan, in the Massachusetts Assembly. 

Peace was at length secured by a treaty signed at Versailles on 
Sept. 3rd, 1 783. By this treaty Canada suffered. England was 
in a mood to be generous, — a generosity for which The Treaty of 
she has since received small thanks, — and this mood "Versailles. 
she chose to indulge at some expense to Canada. The rich Ohio val- 
ley — all the fertile region, indeed, to the south of the Great Lakes 
— was taken from Canada and given to the new-born republic. 
From the point where the St. Lawrence is crossed by the 45th 
parallel, the southern boundary of Canada was declared to lie 
along the mid-channel of the river, and through the middle of 
Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Superior, and Lake of the Woods. 
On the east the boundary between Nova Scotia and Maine was 
defined to be the St. Croix River, with a " line drawn from its 
source to the highlands dividing the waters falling into the Atlantic 
from those emptying themselves into the St. Lawrence." This 
definition was an irretrievable blunder, permitting Maine to thrust 
a great elbow of alien territory far up between Canada and Nova 
Scotia. It was a blunder from the effects of which we suffer to 
this day. The wording, too, was ignorantly vague ; and from its 
vagueness afterwards came disputes which were hardly settled 
without another war. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SECTIONS: — 62, the Loyalists. 63, Experiences of the 
Loyalists during the War. 64, the Loyalists in Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. 65, the 
Loyalists in Western Canada. 66, Conditions of Life 
among the Loyalists. 

62. The Loyalists. — When England signed the Treaty of 
Versailles (1783), she was so bent on being generous to her tri- 
The loyalists umphant enemies, that she failed in common justice to 
the^Treaty'of the friends who had staked their all upon her fidelity 
Versailles. ^^^ prowess. The war, made possible by the selfish 
stupidity of Parliament in denying to the colonists the rights of 
free British subjects, was a stinging humiliation to the motherland 
before the eyes of all peoples. But more humiliating beyond 
measure was the peace which abandoned the loyalists to their 
fate. The treaty made no provision for them, except that it 
pledged Congress to commend them to the kind consideration 
of the various states ! This clause of the treaty called forth 
indignant protest both in the House of Commons and in the 
House of Lords. Wilberforce said, " When I consider the case 
of the loyalists, I confess I there feel myself conquered ; I there 
see my country humiliated ; I see her at the feet of America." 
Lord Sackville said, " A peace founded on the sacrifice of these 
unhappy subjects must be accursed in the sight of God and 
man." The worried government, however, pleaded harsh necessity. 
In piteous tones they protested — " We had but the alternative 
either to accept the terms proposed, or continue the war." But 
the honour of England demanded that her last penny should be 

194 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LOYALISTS. 195 

spent, her last sword shattered in war, before she forsook those 
whom she was bound by every tie to defend. The compensations 
which, as we shall presently see, she afterwards granted to the 
loyalists, were only the late rendering of a partial justice. 

But the destiny that governs nations was working to great ends. 
It was decreed that of stern and well-tried stuff should be built a 
nation to inherit the northern half of this continent. The migra- 
tion of the loyalists will some day come to be recognized as one 
of those movements which have changed the course of history. 
It will be acknowledged as not less significant and far-reaching 
in its results than the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. For, with- 
out detracting from the achievement of our French 
fellow-citizens, who have moulded a great province, of the loyai- 
it is but truth to say that the United Empire loyalists 
were the makers of Canada. They brought to our making about 
thirty thousand people, of the choicest stock the colonies could 
boast. They were an army of leaders, for it was the loftiest heads 
which attracted the hate of the revolutionists. The most influen- 
tial judges, the most distinguished lawyers, the most capable and 
prominent physicians, the most highly educated of the clergy, 
the members of council of the various colonies, the Crown 
officials, people of culture and social distinction, — these, with 
the faithful few whose fortunes followed theirs, were the loyalists. 
Many of them would never have consented to dwell under the 
flag of the new republic. Many others, accepting the decision 
of the war, would have forced themselves to accept also the new 
government ; but for having remained true to their allegiance 
they were hounded to the death as traitors. Canada owes deep 
gratitude indeed to her southern kinsmen, who thus, from Maine 
to Georgia, picked out their choicest spirits, and sent them forth 
to people our northern wilds. 

63. Experiences of the Loyalists during the War. — For those 
of the loyalists who were loyal because of the offices which they 
held under the Crown, trouble of course began long before the 
outbreak of the war. This was especially the case in Massachu- 



196 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

setts, where indignant patriots proved their patriotism by burn- 
ing Governor Hutchinson's mansion, mobbing sheriffs and judges, 
The people driving feeble old men into the woods, and heaping 
before'uie ^'^^ insults upon the wives and daughters of officials, 
war. Where the violence was directed merely against Crown 

officers in the act of enforcing obnoxious statutes, of course much 
allowance must be made. When collectors ' of the tea-duty, or 
officers executing the Stamp Act, were tarred and feathered, such 
ebullitions may be regarded as merely an energetic form of pro- 
test. But the violence of protest soon deepened into the violence 
of persecution. On the approach of war the line between the 
loyalists and revolutionists widened to a gulf of hate. Many of 
the loyalists could not have been other than loyal, because their 
sense of duty forbade them to rebel, although they were ready 
enough to seek redress of grievances in a constitutional way. 
Yet others again, divided in their sympathies, not certain as to 
the right course, or merely averse to the miseries of war, hesi- 
tated. But all these alike, in the eyes of the revolutionary party, 
were traitors. The word " traitor " was put to a novel use when it 
was applied to the loyalists. 

The loyalists, in turn, were not backward in retorting the same 

vigorous epithet upon the revolutionists. In those districts where 

they were heavily outnumbered, they were compelled 

The loyalists ^ \ . ' ■' ^ 

in New Eng- to seek safety with the King's troops. They were 

beaten and plundered, their estates confiscated, and 
themselves banished under penalty of death. When Gage evacu- 
ated Boston, out-generalled by Washington at the very beginning 
of the war, he took with him hundreds of loyal citizens, who dared 
not trust their lives to the men of Massachusetts. It has been 
well asked by a distinguished writer, '" Were not the loyalists 
Americans, and did not their wrongs exceed any of those done to 
Americans by the King?" F2ven the wives of the English and 
German officers captured with Burgoyne's army at Saratoga were 
subjected to gross insult during their captivity in Boston. 

Where, as was the case in parts of the South, the population 



SUFFERINGS OF THE LOYALISTS. ic^y 

was fairly divided between loyalist and revolutionist, the fight 
was waged with intense ferocity, and dreadful barbarisms were 
practised on both sides. In some districts the two factions threat- 
ened to exterminate each other. Noted partisan leaders arose, 
like Tarleton on the loyal side, Marion on what was xhe loyalists 
now called the "continental" side. Adventurous i^i ti^e South, 
chiefs like these gathered troops of followers who smarted to 
avenge either public or private, real or fancied, wrongs ; and a 
vindictive guerilla warfare was waged. Each side did cruel out- 
rage in the name of the cause which it held sacred. 

When at length peace was declared, terrible was the case of the 
vanquished. Peace should sheathe the sword and bring forgetful- 
ness of vengeance j* but this peace meant the opportunity of the 
victors. It was followed by barbarities which put an ineffaceable 
stain on the shield of the young republic. At the 

time of the evacuation of New York Sir Guy Carleton comes at last 

■' to the rescue, 

commanded the English forces in America ; and feel- 
ing bitterly the desertion of the loyalists, he sent several thousands 
of them away in the King's ships. But of the great numbers lying 
beyond the reach of Carleton's care many were put to ignominious 
death. Scourging, ducking, tarring and feathering, proscription, 
and banishment were the fate that fell to the remainder. The 
state governments deliberately plundered, and drove out in abject 
poverty, men guilty of nothing but fair fight in a lawful cause. 
At Charleston, when the King's troops sailed away, the spectacle 
that greeted their backward gaze was one that EngHsh cheeks 
must blush to think of. The bodies of twenty-four loyalists, 
abandoned to their foes by the country they had fought for, swung 
from a row of gibbets on the wharf. It is not civilization, but blind 
barbarism, that takes such vengeance upon the conquered. Men 
like Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and Greene, jealous for the honour 
of their cause, protested, but in vain. At length the cry that went 
up from the suffering loyahsts grew so bitter that England tardily 
gave ear. 

Sir Guy Carleton was the chief mover in the work of rescue ; 



198 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



but Governor Haldimand in Quebec and Governor Parr in Nova 
Scotia lent effective aid. It was decided that the refugees should 
be settled in western Canada, in Nova Scotia, and on the Island 
of St. John ; that they should be given grants of land according 
to their rank and standing, in extent from one hundred acres up 
to several thousand ; and that they should be fed by the govern- 
ment, till their lands should begin to make return. The loyalists 
of the Atlantic coast gathered in the seaport towns, where ships 
were speedily provided. Others, dwelling inland, were directed 
to make their rendezvous at Niagara, Sackett's Harbour, Oswego, 
and the foot of Lake Champlain. In the year 1 783 the great ' 
exodus took place, and the loyalists flocked across the border 
into the land which they and their descendants have made great. 
They divided into two main streams, one moving eastward to the 
Maritime Provinces, the other flowing westward to the region 
north of the Lakes. 

64. The Loyalists in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince 
Edward Island. — In St. John, New Brunswick, the iSth day of 
The founding May is celebrated as the natal day of the city. On 
andShei^° that day, 1783, took place the Landing of the Loyal- 
bume. -g^g^ Th.^ mouth of the St. John River is a secure 

haven, but fenced about with grim and sterile hills which belie the 
fertile country lying inland. Hither came the ships of the refugees 
from New York, and all through the summer they continued to 
arrive. At the harbour mouth they built a city which they called 
Parrtown, in honour of Nova Scotia's governor. Many went on 
through the rocky defile of the Narrows, and spread up the beau- 
tiful shores of the great river a distance of eighty-four miles, to 
St. Anne's Point. Five thousand loyaHsts came to the St. John 
during this memorable summer. These were, for the most part, 
ofificers and men of disbanded regiments who had fought bravely 
for the King, — among them the famous Queen's Rangers, — and 
their temper toward the Maugerville settlers, who were known to 
have sympathized with the rebels, was by no means friendly. The 
Maugerville settlers were known as the "old inhabitants." Where 



NEW BRUNSWICK AND CAPE BRETON. 



199 



these " old inhabitants " could show titles to their lands, they were 
secure ; but in other cases, where titles were not forthcoming, the 
loyalists were very ready to seize the farms of the squatters in 
revenge for what they had themselves been forced to endure. 

While the St. John River valley was thus filling up with strong 
settlers, and a busy city rising at the river's mouth, other loyalist 
bands went to Nova Scotia, and to the fertile gulf province 
which still bore the name of St. John's Island. On the tidal 
meadows of the Bay of Fundy waters they settled, and at Digby, 
and along the Atlantic coast to eastward of Halifax ; but their 
great settlement was made at Port Razoir, near the south-west cor- 
ner of the peninsula. Here was a superb and landlocked harbour 
which captivated the exiles. As it were in a night there sprang up 
on its shores a city of twelve thousand inhabitants, which took the 
name of Shelburne. But the site had been ill-chosen. Shelburne 
had nothing but its harbour. The country about it was not fertile. 
There was nothing to nourish a town of such size and pretension. 
So the city which had sprung up like a gourd in a single night, 
withered as it were in a day. Its people scattered to Hahfax and 
other parts of the province, some even going up the St. Lawrence 
and westward to the Lake region. And in three years from its 
sanguine foundation Shelburne had dwindled to a small village. 
In some cases the very houses of this fleeting city were taken down 
and carried away, to be set up again at Yarmouth or Weymouth. 

The loyalists of the St. John River were no sooner settled than 
they demanded representation at Halifax. When this was refused 
by Governor Parr they at once agitated for a division of the prov- 
ince. In spite of the governor's opposition this was granted, for 
they had strong friends in England ; and in 1784 Nova Scotia was 
shorn of her great territory to the north of the Bay of ^ew Bnins- 
Fundy. This region was erected into the province of cape Breton 
New Brunswick, with Colonel Thomas Carleton, Sir Sfepro?-^" 
Guy's brother, as its governor. He was assisted by a ^'"'®®- 
council of twelve members, and an elective assembly of twenty-six 
representatives. Cape Breton, at the same time, was made a 



200 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

separate province, under Major Desbarres as governor ; and its 
capital was removed from Louisburg to the new town of Sydney. 
About eight hundred loyalists moved into Cape Breton, settling 
at Sydney, Louisburg, St. Peter's, and Baddeck, where during 
their first winter they suffered terribly from storm and famine. 
The existence of Cape Breton as a separate province was brief. 
In 1820, as we shall see, it was reabsorbed in Nova Scotia. 

Soon after the establishment of New Brunswick, Parrtown was 

incorporated as a city, and its name was changed to St. John. 

Two years later (1786) the capital was removed to St. 

made the Anne's Point, eighty-four miles up the river, where the 

C3.pll3.1 Oi 

NewBruns- city of Fredericton was built. The main object of this 

wick. ^ 

removal was greater security from attack, the object 
which Villebon, too, had sought when he removed thither from 
Port Royal. It was also the governor's purpose to escape from 
the distractions of a stirring commercial centre, which St. John 
very rapidly became. The province of New Brunswick, like its 
mightier sister Ontario, was thus peculiarly a child of the loyal- 
ists. It is estimated that the loyalist migration brought not less 
than twenty thousand people into Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
and Prince Edward Island. In New Brunswick the new-comers so 
overwhelmingly outnumbered the old inhabitants that they gave 
their own character and type to the whole province. 

65. The Loyalists in Western Canada. — Into the work of 
finding western homes for the loyalists Governor Haldimand 
of Canada threw himself with fervour. As we have seen, most 
of the loyalists of the seaboard went to Nova Scotia ; but a 
■D +1. * T portion of this eastern stream flowed on into the 
and districts Gulf and turned up the St. Lawrence. Some of 

occupied by ^ 

the western these wide-wandering immigrants stayed their course 
loyalists. & (3 J 

at Sorel, a few miles below Montreal. The greater 

number, however, went on to the vast unpeopled spaces about 

Fort Frontenac. These pioneers of what is now our premier _ 

province, the great commonwealth of Ontario, were led by a 

sturdy loyalist of the Hudson, named Grass, whose father, hav- 



THE WESTERN LOYALISTS. 20I 

ing once been prisoner among the French at Fort Frontenac, 
had reported the country good. To this same region followed 
the greater number of the inland loyalists, making their escape 
from the hostile republic by way of Oswego, Sackett's Harbour, 
and Ogdensburg. The chief movement took place in 1784, 
and occupied all the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The 
western fringe of the migration consisted of families from the 
Susquehannah valley, many of whom worked their way along 
Lake Erie as far as the banks of the St. Clair. The refugees 
who had gathered at Niagara were wise enough not to go far. 
They established themselves on the sunny and fruitful lands 
along the Niagara River and around the head of Lake Ontario, 
whence they spread westward through the peninsula that lies 
between Erie and Huron, the very garden of Canada. On the 
east of this inland migration lay invitingly open the pathway of 
Lake Champlain and the Richelieu, so often the track of armies. 
By this most accessible portal entered many of the Hudson River 
loyalists, — Germans of the old Palatinate settlements, Sir John 
Johnson's disbanded "Royal Greens," and the Mohawks who had 
so faithfully adhered to the fortunes of the Crown, under their 
great chief, Joseph Brant. 

Many of these went on to the west and north, settling the 
St. Lawrence shore between Fort Frontenac and Montreal ; but 
others, dreading the long journey and the hardships The Eastern 
of the remoter wilderness, paused in their flight as ^"^°ships. 
soon as they found themselves well beyond the border. The 
pleasant country between the American frontier and the old St. 
Lawrence settlements was thus filled up with a strong popula- 
tion. It now forms what is known as " The Eastern Townships," 
— a distinctively English section of the French province of Que- 
bec. That all the inland loyalists did not stay in the Eastern 
Townships is due to two facts. In the first place, the loyalists 
had been trained to self-government, and doubtless looked to 
the erection of a new province with a constitution and laws very 
different from those established in Canada by the Quebec Act. 



202 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

In the second place, Governor Haldimand discouraged settle- 
ment along the frontier, dreading a continuance of the American 
intrigues which had already caused him so much trouble. 

It is estimated that not fewer than ten thousand loyalists 
came into the St. Lawrence and Lake districts during the great 
„ ^ , migration. This number includes what are known as 

Numbers and ° 

influence of the "Later Loyalists," who came inafter the pioneers 

the loyalists. '■ 

had opened the way. These later loyalists were 
people who, through prudence or weakness, had made them- 
selves less obnoxious to the revolutionists and had therefore 
been allowed to stay in the new republic. Their hearts, how- 
ever, had clung to the old flag. The first comers were of the 
sturdier stock, and more uncompromising in their views. To 
them belongs the greater glory. The majority of them were 
members of loyal colonial regiments which had fought with tire- 
less tenacity through the war ; and when, nearly a generation 
later, war broke out between England and the American states, 
they and their sons proved that the warlike fire had not been 
suffered to perish. To this, as we shall see, the records of the 
war of 1 812-14 bear witness. As the history of Canada unfolds, we 
shall mark henceforth the mighty influence of the thirty thousand 
exiles who crossed our borders in those eventful years. As we 
watch the destiny of this people taking shape, we shall be forced 
to realize that the hands most potent in shaping it are the hands 
of the sons of the loyalists. 

66. Conditions of Life among the Loyalists. — From 1783 to 
1790 the British government kept commissioners at work inquir- 
The United ^i"*? ^'^to the claims of the loyalists, and granting 
Empire List, j-j^gi-^ partial indemnity for the losses which they 
had sustained in the war. The total amount paid out by Great 
Britain in this way was nearly ^15,000,000, which does not in- 
clude the value of the general land grants, implements, and sup- 
plies of food which were issued. In many sections the loyalists 
were fed on government rations for three years after their arrival. 
The sons of the loyalists, on coming of age, were entitled to cer- 



MILLS AND FOOD. 



203 



tain grants and privileges. In 1789, therefore, was compiled that ' 
roll of honour known as the United Empire List, consisting of 
the names of all the loyalists who had fled out of the republic 
during the previous six years. These were to be known thence- 
forward as the United Empire LoyaUsts. After their names they 
were entitled to place the letters U. E. L. 

Among the supplies granted to the faithful immigrants were 
tools for building their houses and implements for clearing and 
tilling their lands. To each pioneer family were Mills and 
given a plough and a cow. A few of the settlements *°°'^' 
were so fortunate as to receive portable mills for the grinding 
of their grain. The greater number of the pioneers, however, 
in Upper Canada at least, had no such luxuries as mills. Their 
grain was chiefly Indian corn and wild rice. These they crushed 
between stones, or with an axe ; and with the broken stuff" they 
made a rough bread. But this clumsy process was soon super- 
seded by the "Hominy Block," — a hard-wood stump, with a 
large hollow burned in the top of it. In this hollow the grain 
was pounded with a great wooden rammer or " plumper." Some- 
times a hominy block was large enough to hold a bushel or two 
of grain at a time ; and in such case the grinding was done by 
a stone with a heavily weighted "sweep," or long pole, attached 
to it. Of course, as prosperity advanced these primitive con- 
trivances were soon set aside, and grist-mills took their place. 

As the settlers felled the great trees which covered their do- 
mains, they used the logs to build their cabins and their barns. 
Such sawed lumber as they absolutely required they got out 
laboriously with the " whip saw " and " cross-cut." Many of 
these men were quite new to the use of axe and saw. Not 
a few had been accustomed to life in social centres ; but now 
they made their homes in harshest isolation. Often miles of 
savage forest severed them from their nearest neighbours. They 
had been used to snug cottages, well-stored roomy farmhouses, 
or perhaps to those stately old colonial mansions wherein reigned 
a hospitality all but princely. Now they betook themselves to 



204 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

a log dwelling, often with but one room and one window. Its 

roof would be mere sheets of bark stretched on a layer of poles ; 

its chinks would be stuffed with moss and clay to 
Houses. •' 

keep out the wind. Their chimneys at first were 

perilous structures of sticks and clay. As soon as possible, how- 
ever, they reproduced the ample chimneys of their former dwell- 
ings, built of rough stone or coarse and ill-shaped brick ; and 
thousands of such chimneys stand to this day, occupying a hugely 
disproportionate space in the houses which they both serve and 
dominate. 

Into these rude first dwellings of the loyalists came some arti- 
cles of luxury, brought from rich honaes on the Susquehannah, the 

_ .^ Hudson, or the Connecticut. To-day the sons of the 

Furniture. ■' 

loyalists point with pride to tall, old clocks, to time- 
stained chairs and " secretaries," that have shared the changed 
fortunes of their ancient owners and withstood the rough journey 
from the world into the wilderness. In most cases, however, little 
was saved from the angry revolutionists, and that little could not 
be taken over the forest trails. Some of the loyalist cabins had no 
furniture but a bed, made of four poles with strips of basswood 
bark woven between them. The toil of clearing and planting 
sometimes left no time for the construction of luxuries like chairs 
and tables. To stave off actual famine took all the settler's ener- 
gies. In parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, of course, 
where the way was already opened up by older settlers, the new- 
comers had less hardship to endure ; but by far the greater por- 
tion of the country allotted to the loyalists was remote and 
unbroken wilderness. 

In the subduing of this wilderness the loyalists were not at first 
convincingly successful. Many of them, as we have seen, were by 
The Hungry no means fitted for the life into which they had been 
^®^''" so harshly thrust. In 1787, just when they were 

being thrown upon their own resources by the government, the 
stubborn soil rebelled against its new masters and the crops 
on all sides failed. This was in the Lake region. Though the 



THE HUNGRY YEAR. 205 

government had only undertaken to feed the immigrants for three 
years, some of the more shiftless among them had made no pro- 
vision for the time when this help would cease. Others, who had 
done their best, had yet been unfortunate in the battle with frost 
and wild beasts. The following year, 1788, was one of the bitter- 
est privation, till a good harvest en'ded the anguish. Its memory 
comes down to us under the name of the " Hungry Year." The 
people had to dig those wild, tuberous roots which children know 
as " ground-nuts." Butternuts and beechnuts were sought with 
eager pains. Men sold their farms for a little flour, or even the 
coarsest bran. The early buds of the basswood were gathered and 
boiled, with the weed called " lamb's-quarter," and pigweed, and 
the wild " Indian cabbage." Game of all sorts was fairly abun- 
dant, — deer, rabbits, turkeys, pigeons ; but powder and shot were 
scarce. Gaunt men crept about with poles, striving to knock 
down the wild pigeons ; or they angled all day with awkward, 
home-made hooks for a few chub or perch to keep their families 
from starvation. In one settlement a beef-bone was passed from 
house to house, that each household might boil it a little while and 
so get a flavour in the pot of unsalted bran soup. A few of the 
weak and aged actually died of starvation during these famine 
months ; and others were poisoned by eating noxious roots which 
they grubbed up in the woods. As the summer wore on, however, 
the heads of wheat, oats, and barley began to grow plump. 
People gathered hungrily to the fields, to pluck and devour the 
green heads. Boiled, these were a luxury ; and hope stole back 
to the starving settlements. 

But this year had marked the climax of their trials ; and thence- 
forward the loyalists of Upper Canada made swift progress. At 
the very beginning they had realized the value of "Bees "and 
cooperation ; and instead of each man painfully level- "^^^^^^s-" 
ling his own patch of forest, hauling his own logs, building his own 
meagre cabin, a system of " frolics " or " bees " ^ was instituted. 

1 The word " frolic " seemed the more in favour throughout the provinces by 
the sea, while around the lakes " bee " was the accepted term. 



206 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

There were "chopping frolics" and "building bees." Later, 
when the cleared fields began to yield generous crops, and the 
frame-house little by little took the place of the log-cabin or 
shanty, then came " husking bees " and " framing bees." When 
a new homestead was to be raised, along the raw roads and 
"blazed" trails the men of the townships came flocking to the 
neighbourly task. On such occasions (when ance the first hard 
years were over), there was free mirth and rough but wholesoine 
abundance. The daring of wolves and bears made pork, mutton, 
and beef all too scarce • but venison and wild turkeys were on 
hand ; with pies of wild fruit, and pyramids of smoking corn- 
bread or "johnny-cake." A delicacy much favoured at these fes- 
tivities was known as " pumpkin-cake," which consisted of a 
mixture of boiled pumpkin and corn-meal, sweetened with maple 
sugar, spiced, and baked. Or it was made without sweetening, 
and eaten with butter. At such festivals, as at ordinary times, 
the spoons and dishes used were generally of wood, — the white 
fine-grained wood of the poplar being preferred for the purpose. 
Little by little these wooden utensils were replaced by pewter, 
which came to the pioneer's door in the packs of occasional 
Yankee peddlers. This pewter, under much scouring, was made 
to shine like silver. 

Long after our loyalist fathers had learned to satisfy their 

robust appetites with generous and varied backwoods fare, their 

dress kept its primitive simplicity. At first, of course. 

Clothing, etc. , . ir j > 

they had the ordinary costumes of the pre-Revolution 
time, which they brought with them. These, in the case of the 
wealthier classes, were quite too gorgeous and elaborate for wear 
in the woods. The men would outshine the most dazzling belle 
of our more sober day. Imagine a Robinson, a VanAlstine, a 
Delancey, dressed in a wide-flapping frock-coat of blue damask 
lined with velvet, white satin waistcoat, black satin tight knee- 
breeches, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers mth huge 
silver buckles covering the whole instep ; — or in a pea-green coat, 
white silk vest, and yellow nankeen knee-breeches, with garter- 



LOYALIST DRESS. 20/ 

bows dangling to the ankles. Perhaps for informal occasions 
the loyalist gentry would be content with stockings of some dark 
hue, and wide-skirted coat of snuff-colour, bottle-green, or claret. 
Certain it is, however, that most of the loyalists had small choice 
in the matter of clothes after they had been a year or two in the 
new land. As speedily as possible flax and hemp were grown, and 
the clacking loom became an institution in every settler's cabin. 
Coarse linen was woven ; and blankets of hemp mixed with hair 
from hides. But wool was long a scarce article, owing to the 
fondness of Canadian wolves for loyalist sheep. Many of the 
poorer men, and women too, wore nothing but dressed deerskins, 
which proved durable indeed, but soon got lamentably greasy. In 
the scarcity of soap, the scant linen of the household was often 
washed with strong lye. In the records of the time we read of 
a girl who innocently tried to clean her one garment, a gown of 
deerskin, in the same potent liquid, and saw the leather shrivel 
away to nothing before her startled eyes, so that she was fain to 
hide in the potato cellar till her mother could get her a blanket. 
As for finery, a Httle of that could be got, by those able to afford 
it, from the Yankee peddlers already referred to. It usually took 
the form of poorly-printed calicoes at a fabulous number of shil- 
hngs per yard. We read of such calicoes at eight and ten shillings, 
with book muslin at eighteen shillings. Many a bride of the loyal- 
ists had nothing but deerskin for her wedding garment. 

But the stubborn energy of these pioneers, which had made 
them so hated by their adversaries, in due course carved success 
out of misfortune. The greatness of that success one success at 
has but to look around him to see. The loyalists ^^®*' 
were God-fearing men, and they held sacred the education of 
their children. Therefore as soon as the wilderness began to yield 
before their axes, they made haste to build the school-house and 
the church ^ in every district. A jealous care for these marks the 
Canadian spirit to this day. 

1 The first loyalist church erected in what is now Ontario was that of the loyal 
Mohawks on Grand River. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SECTIONS: — 67, Lord Dorchester Governor-General. 68, 
THE Constitutional Act. 69, the Two Canadas — Upper 
AND Lower. 70, the Maritime Provinces. 71, Threats of 
War between England and the United States. 

67. Lord Dorchester Governor-GeneraL — Ever since the pass- 
ing of the Quebec Act in 1674, the Enghsh inhabitants of Canada 
Canadians, had been dissatisfied. As we have seen, the provisions 
Engiisha^fke, ^^ French law were deeply distasteful to them. Still 
resentative' niore Strongly did they object to being deprived of 
government, representative government. As soon as the loyalists 
were fairly established in Canada, the clamour for English law and 
popular assemblies increased a hundredfold. The new inhabitants 
were not of a stock or a temper to long endure the loss of their 
political privileges ; and being high in favour with the home 
government, their appeals were heard attentively in the halls of 
Westminster. In their demand for self-government, they were 
warmly supported by the leaders of the French Canadians, who 
foresaw the power to be wielded by the votes of their country- 
men. They protested, very naturally, against being counted less 
fit for representative government than their fellow- subjects of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. In this demand for representa- 
tive institutions we catch again, and this time sharply sounded, 
the key-note of the Second Period of Canadian History. We 
discern the first strong movements of that struggle which was to 
end in full Responsible Government for all the provinces. 

Governor Haldimand, who had been somewhat arbitrary in his 

208 



FIRST SUGGESTION OF UNION. 



209 



methods of enforcing the very arbitrary form of government pro- 
vided by the Quebec Act, now resigned. Though a warm and 
untiring friend to the loyaUsts, his sternness had made LordDorches- 
him unpopular. In 1787 that well-tried friend of govern™^*^ 
Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, returned to the country senerai. 
which he had saved twelve years before. For his services he had 
been made Lord Dorchester. He came now as governor-general 
of all the provinces and commander-in-chief of all the forces in 
British North America. His immediate authority was exercised 
in the Lake country and the valley of the St. Lawrence ; while the 
governors of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, St. John's Island, and 
Cape Breton were made subordinate to him, with the title of 
lieutenant-governor. Even at that day we find germs of the 

policy and sentiment which were destined to ripen, 
, , 1 , , . . The first sug- 

slowly and through many vicissitudes, into this great gestionof 

Confederation of Canada. We see the first governor tween the 
of New Brunswick, Thomas Carleton, unfolding to the 
provincial Assembly his dreams of the expansion which would 
follow as the sister provinces drew more closely together in their 
interests and their sympathies. 

On Lord Dorchester's arrival in Canada he made haste to 
reheve the general discontent. His measures were but tempo- 
rary, however. They were intended to serve only till 

, ' . . , T^ ,. , , , , LordDorches- 

the British Parliament could pass such an act as would ter soothes 

... ^ , , ^^ the agitation. 

remove the mam grievances of the people. He re- 
stored the Act of Habeas Corpus, as well as the principle of trial 
by jury in civil cases. At the same time, to aid the British Parlia- 
ment in the legislation which he demanded, he drew up a careful 
and masterly report on the conditions of politics, education, com- 
merce, and the administration of justice in Canada. For the bet- 
ter ordering of its affairs, Lord Dorchester divided the newly settled 
Lake region into four districts, each with regularly constituted 
courts of English law. As a compliment to the large German 
element in their population, — so many of the inland loyalists 
being of German stock, — he named these districts Lunenburg, 



2IO A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Mecklenburg, Nassau, and Hesse. They were afterwards renamed 
Eastern (that adjoining the Ottawa), Midland, Home (or Niag- 
ara), and Western (or Detroit). 

68. The Constitutional Act. — The remedy proposed by Lord 
Dorchester for the difficulties in Canada was a division of the 
The division territory into two provinces, each to have that form of 
of Canada. constitution best suited to the wants of its inhabitants. 
In accordance with this plan Earl Granville introduced in the 
British Parliament a bill, known to Canadian history as the 
"Constitutional Act," for dividing the dissatisfied province into 
Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The act stirred up a fierce 
debate in the Imperial Parliament. The English population of 
the proposed Lower Province were violently against it, fearing 
that they would be swamped by the French majority. Many 
were for treating French Canada in all respects as a conquered 
territory, and imposing upon it the EngUsh language, English laws, 
and English institutions, — a course which would have found 
ample precedent in the practice of civilized states. But both 
policy and justice seemed to point to other measures. Lord 
Dorchester's advice, backed by the tremendous support of the 
younger Pitt, carried the day. The French Canadians had 
proved themselves loyal subjects of Great Britain at a time when 
the sons of her own loins were flying at her throat. They had 
turned a deaf ear to the bribes of the rebel colonies. Now, at 
a time when France was given up, in the name of Liberty, to all 
the wild horrors of the Revolution, the French Canadians were 
faithful to their church and obedient to their priests. This 
steadiness and conservatism found great favour in English eyes. 
Enghsh statesmen were not incHned to force upon so excellent 
a people any laws and customs which they did not like. More- 
over, the revolt of the thirteen colonies had rubbed smartly into 
the English mind a lesson which was not yet fully understood. 
Pitt fancied that the new colonies would be more securely held to. 
England if they could be held somewhat apart from each other. 
He favoured the perpetuation of French ideas, institutions, and 



UPPER AND LOWER CANADA. 2II 

speech in Lower Canada, as a barrier between the Enghsh prov- 
inces of Upper Canada on the one hand, and Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick on the other. His dread was lest these provinces 
should some day roll together into one, and repeat the deeds of 
'76. He remembered the cynical saying of Turgot that " colonies 
are like fruits which only cling till they ripen." He wished by 
justice and generosity to strengthen every tie of love between the 
colonies and England ; but by no means did he wish that the 
colonies should love each other. 

Upper Canada, therefore, was made in all respects a British 
province, with English laws, and with all lands held on the free- 
hold tenure. Lower Canada, while receiving the bene- 

° Differences in 

fit of representative institutions, along with the Habeas the institu- 

Corpus Act and the Crimmal Law of England, re- twoprov- 
mamed m other respects, what she already was, a 
French province. Lands were held on that feudal tenure which 
has been already explained. In the case of new grants, however, 
the freehold tenure was permitted on special request. In Civil 
Law, the French practice was established. French sentiment was 
determined that the French language and French customs should 
not go down before the swarming inroads of Enghsh settlement, 
and this sentiment was fully recognized in the new act. The act 
secured to the French Canadians what had been allowed them 
from the Conquest, — the privileges of their rehgion and the main- 
tenance of their church system ; but at the same time, to protect 
the Protestant minority, a large portion of the wild lands was set 
apart in Lower Canada, as in the other provinces, for the support 
of the Protestant clergy. These lands, known as the " Clergy 
Reserves," became in after years a source of bitter strife in the 
provincial assemblies. 

At the time of the division Lower Canada had a population 
of perhaps one hundred and twenty-five thousand. Upper Canada 
of less than twenty thousand. To each was given a Legislature of 
three branches, as in the other provinces. These three branches 
— Governor, Legislative Council, and House of Assembly — cor- 



212 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

responded in a vague way to the "three estates" in England, — 
King, Lords, and Commons. There was also a strong but anoma- 
lous body called the Executive Council, which acted 
The Governor ■' 

and Execu- as an advisory board to the governor. Its powers 

tive Council. , , • i i i i r 

were very vaguely laid down ; and the position of 
its members enabled them to defy public opinion. They were 
the occupants of the highest official posts in each colony, and 
as a rule, though not of necessity, they held seats in the Legis- 
lative Council. The governor, appointed by the Crown, and 
usually sent out from England with small knowledge of the pe- 
culiar conditions of hfe in a new country, was apt to be swayed 
unduly by these official advisers. If the governor made himself 
obnoxious to the people, the people could, in course of time, get 
rid of him by petitioning for his recall. But the members of the 
Executive Council, once they were appointed, held office without 
responsibility either to the governor or the people. The Crown, 
of course, could remove them ; but they were hardly important 
enough to attract the Crown's attention. Therefore their seats 
were impregnable, and they gradually acquired a lofty contempt 
for the classes whom they considered their inferiors. Much of 
the bitterness of the struggle for Responsible Government, des- 
tined so soon to commence, was directly traceable to the arro- 
gance of the Executive Council. 

The Legislative Council was mixed up with the Executive in a 
most confusing way; its membership in part, and its interests 
The Legisia- altogether, were the same. The members of the Leg- 
tive Council, igjative Council were appointed by the Crown, and 
for life. They were selected from among the judges, bishops, and 
highest officials of the provinces. They held themselves respon- 
sible to no one but a king who was too far off to observe them ; 
and they strove to secure to themselves the privileges of a heredi- 
tary aristocracy. In the beginning they were the most vehement 
petitioners for free representative government. When they had 
gained a measure of it, and that measure entirely in their own 
hands, they set themselves to block the wheels of progress. Them- 



THE PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLY. 



213 



selves at first the leaders in the advance, they became at last its 
most obstinate opponents. The final triumph of the principles of 
Responsible Government was only gained by their overthrow. 

The members of the Assembly were the representatives of the 
people, responsible to the people, and elected by the people to 
serve for a fixed term of years. They did not always serve the 
full term, however, as the governor had power to TheAssem- 
" dissolve the House " at any time, and call upon the ^^^' 
people to elect a new Assembly. Under these circumstances the 
people were very likely to reelect their old representatives. In 
the hands of the Assembly rested the power of raising revenues 
for the public services, by taxation and the imposition of customs 
duties. The making of laws rested with the Assembly and Legis- 
lative Council, but no law became operative till it received the 
assent of the governor. As we have said, the raising of revenue 
was in the hands of the Assembly ; but there was a large revenue 
coming in from the sale or lease of Crown lands, as well as from 
the lease of mines and timber limits, which was known as the 
" Casual and Territorial Revenue." The control of this revenue 
was in the very beginning seized by the Executive, with the Leg- 
islative Council's consent. It became a bone of fierce contention 
between Executive and Assembly. 

69. The Two Canadas, Upper and Lowe-r. — The Constitu- 
tional Act, passed in 1791, came into effect in 1792. In that 
year the legislatures of the two provinces were called together. 
That of Lower Canada met at Quebec. It consisted of fifteen 
members for the Legislative Council, and fifty for the House of 
Assembly. The Assembly elected a Frenchman as First meeting 
Speaker of the House, and passed at once a significant of Lower^^'^'^^ 
resolution, requiring the use of both the French and c^^^^^- 
English languages in debate and in the Reports of the House. 
An address was presented to the governor, expressing the grate- 
ful loyalty of the Assembly toward their generous sovereign, 
George HI. An overwhelming majority in the Assembly was 
French ; and this element, though entirely untrained in political 



214 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



life, proved itself well adapted to parliamentary procedure and 
quick to exercise the new powers thus placed within its grasp. 

The Legislature of Upper Canada was summoned in September, 
1792, to meet at Niagara, then the capital of the infant province. 
First meeting It was a miniature parliament, with a Legislative 
of Upp'er^*'^'^^ Council of seven members, an Assembly of sixteen. 
Canada. 'pj^g ^^.g^ governor of Upper Canada was Colonel John 

Graves Simcoe, who may well be called the father of Canada's 
premier province. Governor Simcoe had fought with distinction 
in the late war, commanding the famous Queen's Rangers of Vir- 
ginia. His whole heart was in the Loyalist cause ; and he spared 
no effort to promote the growth of the new loyalist province 
now committed to his care. His first parliament, though it sat 
but for a month, got good work done. Besides completing its 
organization and making rules for its procedure, it passed eight 
important acts. Among these was one which estabhshed English 
law in its entirety. The four divisions of the province were re- 
named, as we have seen ; and in this period of swiftly changing 
names the little capital, at first Niagara, became Lennox, then 
Nassau, then Newark, — only to return at last to its original 
sonorous and stately title. 

TraveUing afoot over the rough, forest trails, or threading lake 
and river in his birch-bark canoe, the sturdy governor explored 
his province, laying out roads where he thought them most urgently 
needed. The great arteries of traffic known as Governor's Road, 
Governor Yonge Street, and Dundas Street, are among the monu- 
for°the^prov^^ ments that remain to us of Simcoe's zeal as a road- 
^^'^^' builder. The gist of his policy was to draw into the 

province those Americans who, though loyalist at heart, had 
shrunk from the hardships of the wilderness and accepted the 
new flag. He issued a proclamation offering free grants of land 
to all who would guarantee to bring it promptly under tillage, and 
who would at the same time subscribe to the following oath : — 
" I, A. B., do promise and declare that I will maintain and defend 
to the utmost of my power the authority of the King in his Parlia- 



FOUNDING OF TORONTO. 215 

ment as the supreme legislature of this province." This proc- 
lamation brought in a throng of settlers from the adjoining states, 
together with immigrants from England and Germany. Within 
the four years after Simcoe's coming the population of Upper 
Canada rose to thirty thousand. 

Simcoe was not satisfied with Niagara as a capital. It was too 
near the American border. The little town had grown with great 
rapidity since the division, filling up with American 

X. 116 Capital. 

immigrants, and capturing a large portion of the trade moved to 
of Lakes Erie and Huron. Its houses were almost all 
built of wood, but many of those occupied by the provincial 
officials were large and imposing structures. Simcoe wished to 
plant his new capital on the river Thames, where the busy city of 
London now stands. But Lord Dorchester favoured the claims 
of Kingston, as old Fort Frontenac was now called. Kingston had 
grown to be a prosperous town, with a hundred houses, a church, 
a fort and barracks, and a thriving trade. It had important ship- 
building industries, and was the headquarters of the Httle fleet 
which guarded Lake Ontario. This squadron, soon to be with- 
drawn because it was regarded as a menace to the Americans, 
was under the command of a French Canadian commodore and 
was officered almost wholly by French Canadians.^ In Simcoe's 
view Kingston was not sufficiently central. The conclusion of the 
matter was a compromise. Just across the lake from Niagara, 
on a little bay which formed a safe harbour, was a trading-post 
long known to the Indians as Toronto. In 1793 the name of this 
post, which had been already made the centre of a township, was 
changed to York, in honour of the old king's son, Frederick Duke 
of York. Here was the place for the new capital. No sooner 
was the choice made than Simcoe betook himself thither, and 
began the building of the town. He could brook no delay. The 
gubernatorial headquarters enshrined themselves in a tent, with 
the red flag flapping above, till a roof could be raised to shelter 

1 The officers wore a blue-and-white uniform with large gilt buttons, on which, 
were stamped the word " Canada " and the figure of a beaver. 



2i6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

them. The new capital was nicknamed at first Little York, and 
later, as it grew larger, Muddy York. But at last, in 1834, it 
resumed its lovely ancient name of Toronto, and wiped out all 
reproaches by its progress and its beauty. 

Before Simcoe could see his labours rewarded by the session 

of Parliament in his new capital, he was recalled from Upper 

Canada and sent to govern the island of St. Domingo 

R6C3.il of 

Governor (1706). He had made some troublesome enemies. 

Simcoe and v / ^ / 

LordDorches- By his strictness m enforcmg the terms of his land- 
grants he had stood in the way of speculators ; by his 
vigour and fearless honesty, as well as by the conservatism of his 
social views, he had stirred up ill-will in many quarters ; and 
though he deserved and held the loyal devotion of the province 
as a whole, the intrigues of his foes brought about his removal. 
But he had stamped himself indeUbly on the province. The pros- 
perity of Ontario is his monument. 

In the same year that Canada lost Simcoe, she lost another of 
her truest friends. Lord Dorchester. During his term of office 
Europe had been convulsed by the French Revolution and the 
upheavals that followed in its train. England had been drawn 
into war, and republican France had sent her emissaries to the 
St. Lawrence valley to seduce the Canadians from their allegiance. 
But the spirit of the Revolution was abhorrent to the French 
of Canada. The generous rule of England had secured itself in 
their affections, largely through the efforts of Lord Dorchester. 
The Roman Catholic Church was sturdily loyal. And the seed 
which Paris was scattering abroad over the world found in Canada 
no congenial soil. A son of George IH, Edward Duke of Kent, 
was now commander of the forces at Quebec, and he was made a 
centre of loyal enthusiasm on the part of the French Canadians. 

During this period another and graver peril was 

Amity and averted, by the conclusion of a " Treaty of Amity 

and Commerce " between England and the United 

States. The Americans, still hot from the late struggle and filled 

with a youthful ardour for republican institutions, were eager for a 



PROGRESS IN NOVA SCOTIA. 21 7 

war with England and an alliance with republican France. But the 
vast weight of Washington's influence was thrown into the other 
scale, and secured the ratification of the treaty. Not yet was the 
overweening pride of the young republic ready for the lesson 
which it was to receive in 1812. 

70. The Maritime Provinces. — In Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick progress was rapid after the coming of the loyalists. 
The introduction of the strong new stock, however, progress in 
produced some disturbance in the political atmos- NovaScotia. 
phere. About the time the Constitutional Act was passed, 
Governor Parr in Nova Scotia was succeeded by Sir John 
Wentworth. A sturdy loyalist clergyman from New York, Doctor 
John Inglis, was made first Bishop of Nova Scotia ; and with the 
warm support of Governor Wentworth he established the Univer- 
sity of King's College, at Windsor. This university, which soon 
afterwards received a royal charter from George III, is the 
oldest university in the colonial empire of Great Britain. The 
usefulness of the college was somewhat unhappily restricted by 
the fact that all but members of the Church of England were at 
fi.rst excluded from it by religious tests. Sir John Wentworth was 
a steadfast upholder of the union between Church and State. He 
was fairly typical of those well-meaning but over-conservative gov- 
ernors with whom the leaders of the people were soon to find 
themselves in conflict for the rights of free citizenship. The war 
with France brought English fleets and English troops to Halifax, 
and English money to circulate through the province, putting life 
into all the channels of its trade. The coasts suffered somewhat 
from the attacks of French privateers, but this only served to stir 
up a martial spirit in the inhabitants. The militia battalions were 
crowded, and the Royal Nova Scotia regiment was enrolled. 
The Duke of Kent shifted his headquarters from Quebec to Halifax 
in 1 794, and the little city became the centre of a brilliant social life. 
The Prince interested himself heartily in provincial affairs. He 
made himself so widely popular that in 1799 the island province of 
St. John was renamed in his honour Prince Edward Island. 



2i8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

The province of New Brunswick, well administered in its in- 
fancy by Governor Thomas Carleton, was basing its progress upon 
lumber. England needed its great pine-trees as masts for the 
fleets which were so gloriously upholding her honour on every sea. 
To foster the trade of this favoured colony, heavy 

Progress in ' 

NewBruns- duties were imposed on the tmiber commg mto Ene- 
wick. • - 

land from foreign ports. This checked the Baltic 

trade, while it stimulated the ship-building and lumbering of New 
Brunswick to a magic growth. Lumbering towns with shrieking 
saw-mills sprang up at every river-mouth. The population grew 
rapidly by immigration from England. Pine plank and spruce 
deal became the bulwarks of New Brunswick's prosperity, and all 
her veins seemed to run sawdust. 

It was in New Brunswick that the struggle between the As- 
sembly on the one hand and the Executive Council on the other 

was first fairly and openly begun. It began almost 
ft)r R^espo^ifsf- immediately after the organization of the province, 
ment°beeins ^^^ ^^^ question at issue was that of the appropriation 
Brun^ick °^ revenues. The Assembly demanded the right of 

raising and controlling the revenues. The members 
voted themselves the sum of ys. 6d. each per day during the 
session as remuneration for their services. This bill was thrown 
out by the Upper House, as the Legislative Council was called. 
The Assembly then incorporated it in the bill for the yearly ex- 
penditure on schools, bridges, roads, and other public service. 
In this new form it went back to the Council. The Council had 
the right to accept or reject, but not to change, the Appropriation 
Bill.^ This brought legislation to a standstill. Neither side 
would yield. At length the Colonial Secretary thundered out of 
Downing Street, pronouncing against the Assembly ; but even by 
this the Assembly was not daunted. For three years (1796- 
1799) no revenue or appropriation bills were passed. Then the 



1 This was the name given to the bill providing for the payment of the Civil 
List and other items of the public service. 



IMMIGRATION OF SCOTCH HIGHIANDERS. 219 

quarrel was settled by a compromise. The Assembly consented 
to make two separate appropriation bills, the one containing items 
of which the Council approved, the other containing those to 
which it objected. The result, though apparently a compromise, 
was in reality a triumph for the Lower House, whose members 
continued to receive their pay. 

While the population of New Brunswick was being swelled by 
English immigrants, Scotch Highlanders were pouring into Cape 
Breton and Prince Edward Island. This Highland , 

° Immigration 

immigration, beginning with the arrival of the ship of Scotch 

'^ ' ° ° ^ Highlanders 

Hector at Pictou in 1773, with two hundred settlers to cape 

' ' "* Breton and 

from Ross, continued with some steadiness till 1828, Prince Ed- 
ward Island, 
by which date not fewer than twenty-five thousand 

Scotch settlers had entered Cape Breton alone. On the threshold 
of the new century began the work of an illustrious colonizer, the 
Earl of Selkirk, whose heart was moved by the sufferings of evicted 
tenants in Scotland and Ireland. He conceived the plan of set- 
tling these unhappy people under the Old Flag in the New World. 
He bega;n his work by leading three ship-loads of Highlanders 
into Prince Edward Island, where they settled the county of 
Queens in 1803. From Prince Edward Island Selkirk next turned 
to Upper Canada, and founded a settlement at Baldoon in the 
extreme west of the province. Thence his attention wandered 
to the far west ; and a few years later we shall find him on the 
banks of the Red River of the North, laying the foundations of 
our prairie province. 

71. Threats of War between England and the United States. — 
In the opening years of the century the ill-will of the United 
States toward Great Britain again grew menacing. ^JQ^^,Jg^g. 
What chiefly aroused it was Great Britain's stern in- tween Great 

^ Britain and 

sistence upon her "Right of Search." The Royal United states 

^ ° . . . over the 

Navy was suffering serious loss by its sailors deserting '-Right of 

to American ships. American captains had acquired 

a habit of seducing the British man-of-war's men firom their duty 

by the offer of higher wages and easier discipHne. Angered by 



220 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

this conduct, the British government ordered its captains to seize 
any deserters found on American ships, and to search all ships 
suspected of harbouring deserters. This order, needless to say, 
was not always carried out in the gentlest fashion, the temper of 
the time not being gentle. A climax came in 1807, when the 
United States frigate Chesapeake, challenged by Her Majesty's 
ship Leopard, refused to give up the deserters among her crew. 
She was forthwith disabled by several broadsides, boarded by the 
Leopard^s crew, and the deserters taken by force. This amazing 
outrage was promptly disavowed by Great Britain ; but it gave the 
Americans righteous grounds for wrath, and war was with difficulty 
averted. 

Meanwhile, in the previous year (1806), Napoleon had struck 
desperately at England's trade by his famous " Berhn Decrees." 

By these decrees Great Britain was declared to be in 
Decrees^^^^"^ a state of blockade. Neutral ships were forbidden to 
Councn^' enter her ports, and all use of her manufactures was 
A^^andVon- prohibited on the continent. The overwhelming 
nit^ercourse strength of the British navy made this decree of 

small effect ; but England retaliated by her Orders- 
in-Council, which forbade all nations to trade with France. 
This was no idle mandate, but one which her fleet was well able 
to enforce ; and under it the commerce of both America and 
France came to ruin. America, if she had felt herself strong 
enough, would perhaps have declared war on both France and 
England, both of whom were capturing her ships. Her wrath, 
however, burned far more hotly against England than against 
France. Not being ready for war, she passed the famous Embargo 
Act (1807), forbidding American ships to trade at any foreign 
port whatever. This curious proceeding almost completed the 
destruction which England and France had begun. The New 
England States, the chief ship-owners, threatened to secede; 
whereupon a new act was passed, forbidding trade with France 
and England but permitting it with the rest of the world. After 
several years of this. Napoleon told America that he had revoked 



QUARRELS IN LOWER CANADA. 221 

his Berlin Decrees in her favour ; while at the same time he gave 
secret instructions to the fleets that they were to enforce the de- 
crees as before. Congress was deUghted. The Non-Intercourse 
Act was repealed as far as France was concerned ; and America 
began to dream wild dreams of a French aUiance. 

For a time, however, wise counsels prevailed in the New World 
repubhc. The influence of Washington was yet mighty. The 
horizon seemed to clear ; and as the war-cloud lifted Political 
along our borders, it was quickly forgotten in the Lowe/° 
excitement of a loud political quarrel in Lower Can- ^^'^^'^^■ 
ada. Dispute had arisen between the Assembly and the Legis- 
lative Council. The Assembly was pressing for fuller self-govern- 
ment and for fuller control of the revenues. For this the Council 
accused it of disloyalty. The members of the Council, in turn, 
were assailed by the Assembly with galling invective. They were 
taunted as greedy and tyrannous intruders. Each party had a 
vigorous press to fight its battles ; and each party, when abuse 
seemed too mild a weapon, was apt to reUeve its feehngs by the 
imprisonment of opposing editors or the suppression of opposing 
sheets. In the midst of this contention came the threat of war, — 
and the strife was hushed. Both parties vied with each other in 
warlike loyalty; the militia companies were rapidly filled up; and 
the French Bishop, M. Plessis, issued a strongly British pastoral to 
be read in all the churches. 

In 1808 Sir James Craig came to Quebec as governor-general. 
A few months later the war-scare subsided. Meanwhile the gov- 
ernor, a brave but obstinate Scotchman, and quite un- „. ^ 

' ' ^ _ Sir James 

acquainted with Caiiadian affairs, had been listening Craig and the 
^ ' =" Assembly. 

to the tales of the Council. He had been persuaded 
that the French Canadians were dangerous and disloyal. He soon 
found himself at strife with the Assembly, who were at that time 
bent on prohibiting judges from holding seats in the Legislature. 
The governor insisted that the Assembly should give its attention 
to providing for the defence of the province ; but the Assembly 
declined to do so until the question of the judges' seats was settled. 



222 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

The governor, with a fine absolutism that would have done credit 
to a Caesar, dissolved the House on the plea that the members 
wasted their time. New elections were held ; and the French 
party came back stronger than ever. More bitterly than ever the 
quarrel was renewed, not only over the judges but over expendi- 
ture of revenues as well. The Assembly declared vacant the seats 
of the judges. The governor again dissolved the House. Secret 
meetings were held all over the province. Angry proclamations 
were issued. The office of the Canadien newspaper, the organ of 
the French party, was stripped by a squad of the governor's sol- 
diers; and the editor was thrown into prison. Six of the most 
prominent and turbulent Assembly-men were arrested and im- 
prisoned ; and the people, with picturesque extravagance, de- 
scribed the time as a Canadian " Reign of Terror" (1809-10). 
The new elections again sent back the old members to their seats ; 
but meanwhile the autocratic governor-general had got a rebuke 
from Westminster. He was ordered to pursue a more concilia- 
tory course, and to assent to the bill for the disqualification of the 
judges. The Council was obliged to yield, and the strife died 
down. 

Meanwhile the long-threatened storm had burst on Canada, 
called down in some degree by an act of the governor's which 
we shall consider in the next section. Sir James retired ; and 
The quarrel Sir George Prevost came in haste from Nova Scotia 
apKoachof^ to ^ th'e vacant office. He soothed the excited 
war. French Canadians. He summoned leading men of 

their party to seats in the Council, and did special honour to 
others whom Craig had treated with harshness. In Upper 
Canada, meanwhile, like scenes, though less violent, had oc- 
curred. After Simcoe's departure the reins of power had been 
quickly gathered into the hands of a iQ,\v influential families, 
who made successive governors the tools of their ambition and 
pride. The Assembly were not long in girding themselves to 
the struggle for popular liberty. But when the war-cloud burst 
on the frontier it stilled the strife of party. The whole force of 



INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT. 223 

the province was at once arrayed under the command of a 
military governor, the illustrious Sir Isaac Brock. 

During these opening years of the century the provinces which 
now form Canada had been growing in population and trade. 
PoUtical strife had been a part of the ferment of growth. Lower 
Canada now contained no fewer than two hundred progress in 
and twenty thousand souls, while Upper Canada could *^^ canadas. 
boast about eighty thousand. There were prosperous newspapers 
in both provinces ; there were iron works at Three Rivers ; there 
were manufactures of paper, leather, and hats. The chief exports, 
besides the ancient trade in lumber and the yet more ancient 
traffic in furs and fish, consisted of wheat and potash. Shipping 
had become a powerful interest, and the foundations of Canada's 
vast mercantile marine were already laid. In 1809 the steamboat 
Accommodation, the first steamer ever seen on the St. Lawrence, 
made the trip from Montreal to Quebec, greatly to the excitement 
and admiration of the people. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SECTIONS: — 72, War declared by Congress. 73, 1812. The 
American Plan of Campaign. 74, the Campaign of 18 13. 
75, THE Campaign of 1814. 

72. War declared by Congress. — The war averted in 1807 by 
England's reparation and apology for the violence of the ship 
Leopard, was finally brought on by a very little matter. In 1809 
Sir James Craig sent a Captain John Henry to Boston, to sound 
the sentiments of the people. There was a certain wild hope in 
Congress Canada that the New Englanders might be persuaded 
declares war. ^^ j^^^g ^j^^ Union. It was well known that the war- 
feeling of Congress was hateful to the men of New England, whose 
interests were wrapped up in British trade. Needless to say, how- 
ever. Captain Henry's mission bore no fruit ; but between him 
and Sir James Craig there passed some correspondence on the 
subject. Meanwhile the temper of the United States govern- 
ment was growing more dangerous. This was manifested by the 
attack of the United States frigate President, of 44 guns, upon the 
English sloop of war Little Belt, of 18 guns, resulting, of course, 
in the capture of the sloop. In the following year (1811), 
Congress passed a bill to treble the United States army and to 
borrow eleven million dollars. A pretext was eagerly awaited 
for open war. It came in the action of Captain Henry, who, not 
receiving from Sir James Craig what he considered sufficient re- 
ward for his services, sold his correspondence to President Madi- 
son for fifty thousand dollars. It was a large price to pay for 
documents which contained nothing of real importance. But the 

224 



AMERICA'S AMBITION. 22$ 

letters were craftily used. The cry was raised that Great Britain 
had tempted the fidelity of New England ; and this spark was 
enough to fire the explosive train. On the 19th of June, 1812, 
Congress declared war. It was really France against whom this 
declaration should have been made, for Napoleon, after luring 
immense numbers of American ships into his harbours, had 
thrown off the mask and seized them all. This outrage, far 
worse than anything of which England was accused, was for- 
given because it was done by England's enemy. 

Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey cried out against 
this senseless war ; and Boston flags were hung at half mast. But 

the masses, the great democracy of America, were 

' ° ■' ' The ambition 

much elated. It was proposed to broaden the bor- of the 

Americans. 

ders of the Union by at once annexmg Canada.^ To 
the American democrats the French alliance seemed to mean no 
less than a division of the world between France and America. 
Canada would drop into the union like a ripe plum. Europe for 
France, the New World for America, — this was the radiant pros- 
pect that dazzled the dreams of politicians of the school of Jeffer- 
son. But the sober New Englanders were not dazzled. They 
pointed to the fact that England had already repealed the detested 
"Orders-in-Council." But they protested in vain. Napoleon was 
advancing, apparently to subdue the vast realms of Russia. He 
was on his way to Moscow at the head of three hundred and 
eighty thousand men. The young republic burned to emulate in 
North America the deeds of her despot model. England's hands 
were well tied by the war in Europe. Wellington was straining 
all his resources in Spain, against Napoleon's marshals. The time 
seemed very ripe. 

It was plain to all eyes that Canada must bear the brunt of the 
war. For her it was to be a war of defence, and the chief burden 

1 The ostensible object of the war was to establish the principle that the flag 
covered the merchandise, and that the right of search for seamen who have 
deserted is inadmissible ; the real object was to wrest from Great Britain the 
Canadas, and, in conjunction with Napoleon, extinguish its Maritime and Colonial 
Empire. — Alison's History of Europe. 

Q 



226 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

of this defence was to fall on the Canadian militia. Her fron- 
tier was drawn out over some seventeen hundred miles. To guard 
Canada's it she could put in the field perhaps five thousand 
readiness. regular troops. But the provinces of Upper and Lower 
Canada had together a population of over three hundred thou- 
sand, — a small number, indeed, compared with the eight millions 
of their enemies, but a sturdy stock from which to gather fighters. 
Lower Canada's Legislature promptly voted ^250,000 for the 
war. In Upper Canada, destined to be the chief battle ground, 
there was a stern spirit of resistance. Volunteer battalions were 
rapidly formed and drilled. But here and there throughout the 
province were bodies of disloyal settlers, — Americans who had 
lately crossed the border in search of better lands, and who wished 
nothing better than annexation. These traitors in the camp gave 
Brock some uneasiness ; but they proved dangerous only to the 
enemy, whom their noisy treason grievously misled. Their pres- 
ence added fuel to the ardour of the loyalists, who thronged to 
Brock's banner till arms could not be found for them all. 

As for the Indians, not only those well-tried loyalists, the 
Mohawks, but also the tribes of the north and west proved faithful 
and efficient allies. They were moved by good-will toward Canada, 

who had treated them iustly. Thev were moved also 
The loyal . 

Indians, and by hatred of the border Americans, from whose greed 

they had long been suffering. Among these Indians 

was one whose memory Canada holds in highest honour, the 

brave and humane Tecumseh,^ chief of the Shawanoes. This 

chieftain, after the defeat of his people by the Americans at 

Tippecanoe, in Indiana, had led the tribe northward into Canada. 

Brave, wise, and faithful, his majestic figure towers throughout the 

conflict with ever-growing distinction, till it falls in the shameful 

defeat of Moravian Town. 

73. 1812. The American Plan of Campaign. — The American 

plan of attack was threefold. An " Army of the North," under 

1 The story of this able leader is well told in the drama of " Tecumseh," by 
the Canadian poet Charles Mair. 



GENERAL BROCK. 22/ 

General Dearborn, was to set out from Albany and move against 
Montreal. An " Army of the Centre," under General Van Rens- 
selaer, was to strike the Niagara frontier. And an „^ . 

' '^ The American 

" Army of the West," under General Hull, the governor plan of triple 
of Michigan Territory, was to operate from Detroit and 
overrun the western sections of Upper Canada. It is a noticeable 
fact that our eastern frontier, all open and hard to defend, was left 
unthreatened, though lying next to those populous and warlike 
communities of New England which had so often signalized their 
prowess on these same borders. For this we had the resolute 
forbearance of the New Englanders to thank. Their state gov- 
ernments would take no part in the war. As we shall see later, 
there was plenty of privateering from the New England ports 
(as there was also from Nova Scotia), but with such unofficial 
ventures the state governments had nothing to do. 

The soul of the Canadian defence was General Brock.^ Before 
he came the loyahsts had watched the approaching storm firmly, 
indeed, but with little hope of anything less than ruin. General 
Brock, who had been ten years in Canada, was thor- ^'^°'^^- 
oughly Canadian in sentiment, and though accustomed to the 
command of British regulars he understood and appreciated the 
militia. The militia, in return, adored him. Honest, brave, kind, 
untiring, and sagacious, he was worthy of the enthusiasm which 
his name evoked. Canada does well to honour him as one of her 
national heroes. As soon as he took charge, a new spirit sprang 
up in the scant battalions of Upper Canada, now face to face with 
so grave a trial. 

The war began in the west. Hull, with an army of twenty-five 
hundred, crossed over from Detroit to Sandwich, and capture of 
found himself among a quiet farming people of French ^^ckmaw. 
descent. Here he issued a bombastic proclamation, promising 
" peace, hberty, and security " to all who would accept American 

1 Isaac Brock was born in Guernsey in 1769. He was therefore forty-three 
years old when this war broke out. He had seen service and won honour in 
Holland, the West Indies, and under Nelson at Copenhagen. He came to 
Canada in 1802, and identified himself heart and soul with Canadian interests. 



228 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

rule, but denouncing the horrors of war upon those who should be 
so misguided as to oppose his irresistible advance. Brock issued 
a counter proclamation, assuring the people that Great Britain 
would defend her subjects, and that Canada, knowing her duty 
toward herself and toward her sovereign, would neither be bullied 
nor seduced. In the interval between the two proclamations ^ 
fell the first stroke of the war, and it was one of good omen for 
Canada. The American fort of Michilimackinac, commanding, 
as in old days. Lake Michigan and the north-west tribes, was 
taken by Captain Roberts with a handful of voyageurs and regu- 
lars. This little force, less than two hundred - in all, marched 
suddenly from Fort St. Joseph, forty miles to the north, crossed 
to Mackinaw Island, and captured without a struggle the Ameri- 
can fort with its garrison of seventy-iive regulars. This was an 
important achievement, as it filled the Indians with fervour, and 
exposed Hull to an attack from the rear. 

Hard on the news of this success came that of Hull's retreat 
upon Detroit. He had been checked by Colonel Proctor with 
Capture of ^ corporal's guard of three hundred and fifty men, and 
Detroit. j^y 'Pecumseh with his Shawanoe bands. Tecumseh 

had intercepted and scattered a detachment of Americans with 
provisions and letters for Hull ; and this slight reverse, together 
with the refusal of the Canadians to hail him as their deliverer, 
had discouraged the doughty general. As soon as the Canadian 
side of the river was thus freed from the enemy, Proctor sent 
a party across to follow up Tecumseh's stroke ; but he suffered a 
sharp repulse at Brownstown, where the Americans were led by a 
brave and capable officer, one Colonel Miller. Before the dilatory 
Hull could second this success, Brock was upon him. The Cana- 
dian general had left York with his little army on August 6th, and, 
traversing the length of Lake Erie in open boats, reached /\mherst- 



1 Hull's proclamation was issued on July 12th, Brock's on July 22nd. Michili- 
mackinac was captured on July 17th. 

2 Roberts was aided in his enterprise by a gallant French Canadian, Toussaint 
Pothier, agent of the North-west Company, who was in Fort St. Joseph at the time. 



CAPTURE OF DETROIT. 229 

burg on the 13th. As we have seen, the letter-bags of the enemy 
had been captured ; and from the contents of these Brock learned 
that Hull's force was thoroughly dispirited. His own force/ in- 
cluding the six hundred Indians under Tecumseh, was little more 
than half that of his adversary ; but he resolved to strike at once. 
Before dawn of August i6th he crossed the river and marched on 
Detroit. The Americans, deserting their outposts, retired into the 
main fort ; and when Brock was on the point of storming the works, 
to his astonishment they capitulated. By the articles of capitula- 
tion thirty-three cannon, twenty-five hundred troops, and the whole 
of Michigan Territory, passed into Canadian hands. The moral 
effect was tremeiidous. The wildest enthusiasm flamed across the 
province, and the name of Brock thrilled every Canadian breast. 

Meanwhile Canada was threatened by the armies of the Centre 
and the North. Brock was hurrying back to fall upon Van Rens- 
selaer, when, much to his disgust, he was met on Lake Erie by the 
news of an armistice. Sir George Prevost, the com- ^he armis- 
mander-in-chief at Quebec, had forbidden all further *^^^' 
hostilities on the part of Canada. England fondly hoped that her 
repeal of the " Orders-in-Council " would lead Congress to recall 
its declaration of war. But Congress had no such thought. The 
armistice was briskly used to strengthen the American position ; 
while Brock was left chafing in forced idleness, and Canada lost a 
golden opportunity. The autumn wore on till the American army 
at Niagara had swelled its ranks to a total of six thousand, regulars 
and militia. Brock, with his headquarters at Fort George, had 
less than a thousand men — Canadian militia, with a few companies 
of regulars, and a band of Mohawk allies. At this juncture a 
party of one hundred American seamen performed a daring feat, in 
the capture of two armed Canadian brigs which were descending 
Lake Erie laden with spoils of war from Detroit. The fame that 
justly accrued to these plucky Yankee mariners fired their coun- 
trymen at Niagara with zeal. They clambured to be led on at 

1 Besides these six hundred Indians, Brock had three hundred and thirty regu- 
lars and four hundred Canadian militia. 



230 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

once to the conquest of Canada. Their general yielded, and led 
them on — not to conquest, however, but to the stinging defeat 
of Queenston Heights. 

The American attack on Queenston took place on October 
The American 13th, 1812. The heights are a part of the lofty and 
Qu^e^enston beautiful plateau through which the Niagara River has 
death o^f' ^"^^ cleft its path from Erie to Ontario. I'he panorama 
Brock. £j.Qj^ ^j^g summit is one of tranquil loveliness, a benign 

and fruitful expanse which has been called the garden of Canada. 
But not of peace are the memories of Queenston. 

Before daybreak Van Rensselaer led the vanguard of his army 
across. The opposite shore was defended by two companies of 
the 49th regiment, with two hundred men of the York Volunteers. 
A sound of many oars in the gloom aroused the defenders. The 
Canadian battery, of one i8-pounder stationed on a spur of the 
heights, opened fire. But under cover of a heavier fire from their 
own side the invaders pressed on, till they had thirteen hundred 
men in line of battle on the Canadian shore. They dashed for- 
ward courageously ; but the Canadians, not daunted by superior 
numbers, held their ground with stubborn valour. At the same 
time a dashing American officer, Captain Wool, leading his de- 
tachment up an almost inaccessible path, gained the crest of the 
heights and turned his fire on the rear of the battery. Then Brock, 
roused by the noise of the firing, rode up from Fort George. Other 
American battalions had by this time joined their comrades on 
the height. There was the key of the situation. Straight up 
the steep Brock led his charging line, in the face of a scathing 
fire. Waving his sword toward another quarter of the field, he 
shouted, " Push on the brave York Volunteers." The words were 
scarcely out of his mouth when he fell, shot through the breast. 
His men raced forward to avenge him, but their ranks withered 
under the fire from the crest ; and the gallant McDonell, at the 
head of those "brave York Volunteers," shared the fate of his wor- 
shipped chief. Then the Canadians paused, holding the approaches 
to the height, and lying in covert behind the houses of the village ; 



QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. 23 1 

while the Americans, who had suffered severely, rested on their 
post of vantage. Their general, Van Rensselaer, was disabled ; 
and now, though they had bravely carried and bravely held the 
heights, their position was a perilous one. About fifteen hundred 
men were cooped up on the narrow summit; behind them the 
deep flood of the Niagara washing the base of two hundred feet 
of precipice, before them the angry Canadian battalions burning 
to avenge their chief. On the other side of the river, to be sure, 
were some four thousand American militia ; but these, perceiving 
the kind of reception their companions-in-arms had met, had 
grown careless about the conquest of Canada. They remem- 
bered only that their duty as New York militia required them to 
remain on the soil of their own state. 

On the death of Brock the chief command fell on General 
Roger Sheaffe, who was at Fort George. About noon he arrived at 
Queenston, bringing with him three hundred regulars General 
of the 41st and 49th regiments, two companies of Lin- fefea^sthe 
coin militia, two hundred Chippewa volunteers, and a g^lnston ^^ 
small band of Six Nation Indians. These additions ^^^s^t^. 
swelled the Canadian force to nearly one thousand men, — a 
motley throng, but of vengeful and eager mettle. Ringing the 
American position with a circle of converging fire, Sheaffe led his 
men forward. The Americans fell fast. Their brave captain. 
Wool, was killed, and his place was taken by Winfield Scott, after- 
wards to gain fame in the annals of American warfare. The 
Americans lay down and reserved their fire till the fatal lines were 
within forty yards of their muzzles. Then they fired as one man, 
a deadly and shattering volley, — but it was powerless to stop the 
Canadian onset. In that grim charge the Americans were swept 
from the summit. Chnging, scrambling, shding, falling, the sur- 
vivors made their way over the brow of the precipice, and on the 
narrow ledges between cliff and flood they surrendered uncondi- 
tionally, — eleven hundred prisoners of war. The battle was one 
at whose story Canadian hearts beat high ; but in the death of 
Brock its triumph was dearly bought. 



232 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

During the funeral of the slain leader the minute guns of Fort 
George were answered gun for gun from the American batteries of 
Fort Niagara, while the American flag flew at half mast, — a chiv- 
alrous tribute to an illustrious foe. On the Heights of Queens- 
ton now rises a tall shaft of stone in Brock's memory, which 
serves also as a far-seen remembrancer of Canadian patriotism. 
The sight of it should bring a blush to the cheeks of those Cana- 
dians whose doctrine proclaims their patriotism a matter of dollars 
and cents. The name of Queenston and the name of Brock are 
blended in our hearts. Nevertheless it must not be forgotten that 
the battle was finally won by Sheaffe, who got a baronetcy for his 
reward. 

Meanwhile, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, the Americans 
were strengthening their position and arming a fleet at Sackett's 
Harbour. This squadron attacked Kingston, but being worsted 
by the Canadian guns, drew off. As they cleared Kingston har- 
The Schooner bour there was enacted a thrilling episode of Cana- 
Szmcoe. ^-^^^ daring. The schooner Simcoe, Captain Richard- 

son commanding, bound for Kingston from Niagara, sailed into 
the midst of the enemy, never dreaming of a hostile sail so near 
her destination. The Simcoe was totally unarmed, the only weapon 
on board being a solitary musket. She was completely headed off 
by the American fleet. But, hopeless as the case seemed, the 
gallant Richardson would not surrender. Crowding on all sail, 
and with the wind behind her, the mad httle craft dashed straight 
upon the fleet. She took the broadside of every ship as she flew 
past. For four miles she ran the terrible gauntlet, her sails and 
bulwarks riddled with round-shot, till at last, in shoaling water 
just outside the port, she sank with a big shot-hole below her 
water line. As she went down the crew cheered recklessly, and 
fired their one musket in gay defiance ; and their cheers were 
reechoed by their countrymen on shore. Boats darted out in 
haste to rescue the heroic crew ; and the Simcoe, raised from her 
temporary grave, was soon again ploughing the blue waters of 
Ontario. 



BATTLES ON THE SEA. 233 

Van Rensselaer, wounded at Queenston, had been succeeded 
by General Smyth, a notable warrior in words and proclamations. 
Smyth set out upon the postponed conquest. He did General 
not lead his men across, however ; he thought it safer f^Jated at 
to send them. They were twenty-five hundred strong, Chippewa, 
but between Chippewa and Fort Erie they were met and roughly 
handled by Colonel Bishopp, with a force of six hundred regu- 
lars and militia. Surprised and vexed to see that his opponents 
were not frowned down by his numbers, Smyth sent a flag of 
truce to Fort Erie requesting the surrender of that stronghold. 
Colonel Bishopp, the commandant, with the utmost poUteness 
declined ; whereupon Smyth withdrew both his troops and his 
request, and went into winter quarters ! His men were so dis- 
gusted and indignant at his folly that a whisper of tar and feathers 
began to circulate in the camp. The general discreetly threw up 
his command and retired to safer neighbourhoods. 

Thus ended, very gloriously for Canada, the land operations of 
the campaign of 181 2. But these successes were overshadowed 
by a series of British reverses on the sea, which filled America 
with such exultant pride that she forgot her humilia- ^avai duels 
tions on the lakes. In five naval duels, four of which orlrt^ Britain 
took place in the latter part of 181 2, the fifth in Feb- united^ 
ruary of 1813, England was defeated on the ocean, of states, 
which she claimed to be sovereign. English hearts were stunned 
at the disgrace ; and England's enemies everywhere rejoiced, 
dreaming that her maritime supremacy was at an end. But the 
explanation was not far to seek. England had a thousand ships 
of war afloat, serving on every sea, most of them scarce half 
manned, many of them long in need of repair. The American 
navy, speaking by comparison, can hardly be said to have existed 
at that time. It was represented by but four frigates, so-called, and 
eight sloops of war. These, however, were all new ships, of a ton- 
nage and weight of metal far beyond their rating, heavily manned 
with picked crews. They were swift, and so could escape into 
their harbours when threatened by superior force. They could 



234 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



choose their own time for fighting. When they fought, there is 
no questioning the fact that they fought well, as to both courage 
and seamanship ; but in every one of these five contests the result 
was a foregone conclusion, so heavily were the British overmatched. 
The American ships Constitution and United States, though called 
44-gun frigates, carried, the one 58 guns, the other 54. They were 
two feet longer than the largest 76-gun ship in the British navy. 
Calling themselves frigates, they were fought by British vessels 
which should never have presumed to join battle with them. The 
duels were as follows : In August the Constitution defeated and 
sank the British frigate Guerriere. In October the American 
sloop Wasp captured the British sloop Frolic. In the same 
month the United States captured the frigate Macedonia. In 
December the Constitution sank the frigate Java. And in Feb- 
ruary, 18 13, the American sloop Hornet sank the English sloop 
Peacock. The first of these contests was a type of all the rest. 
The Constitution fresh from port, the Guerriere just returning from 
a long cruise, with foremast and bowsprit sprung ; the Constitu- 
tion with 58 guns, throwing 1536 lbs. of metal, the Guerriere 
with 48 guns, throwing only 1034 lbs. of metal; the Constitution 
with a crew of four hundred and sixty, and a tonnage of 1538, the 
Guerriere with a crew of two hundred and forty, and a tonnage of 
1092. The battle was fought for two hours at close quarters ; and 
when the Guerrih-e struck she had lost a third of her men, and 
was sinking. The Americans did themselves and their British 
lineage credit in the battle ; but the victory, under the circum- 
stances, was hardly one to wonder at. And the other victories 
were similar, as may be seen by the note.^ A little later, as we 
shall note in the next section, a sea fight was to be fought on more 
even terms, and with a widely different result. 



1 American. 
Wasp. 

Guns 18 

Weight of metal 536 lbs. 

Tonnage 434 

Crew . 13s 



British. 
Frolic. 

Guns 18 

Weight of metal 524 lbs. 

Tonnage 384 

Crew 92 



CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 



235 



December of this same year, 181 2, saw the beginning of an 
important organization. "The Loyal and Patriotic Society of 
Upper Canada " was formed, to provide help for the 
destitute famiUes of Canadian soldiers, succour for Patriotic 

Society of 

the wounded, and comforts for the troops. This Upper 

Canada. 

society raised large sums, both in the colonies and in 
Great Britain. It was instrumental not only in reheving much 
distress, but also in binding together with sympathy the widely 
scattered parts of the empire. 

74. The Campaign of 181 3. — In the opening weeks of 18 13 
new battalions were enrolled in Lower Canada, and large credits 
voted by the loyal French Assembly. Prominent 

■' ■' ■' The opening 

among the new troops were a regiment of Glen- ofthecam- 

. paign. 

garry Highlanders, a regiment of Canadian Fencibles, 
and a French Canadian regiment of Voltigeurs, under Colonel 
de Salaberry. In March a notable feat was accomplished by a 
regiment of New Brunswick regulars, the illustrious 104th, who 
marched on snow-shoes through the wilderness that lay between 
Fredericton and Quebec. In their footsteps followed a small 
party from Halifax, officers and men of the Royal Navy, who 
made haste to Kingston for the purpose of strengthening and 
equipping the fleet on Lake Ontario. There were now about 



American — Concluded. 
United States. 

Guns 54 

Weight of metal 1728 lbs. 

Tonnage 1533 

Crew 474 

Constitution. 

Guns 58 

Weight of metal 1536 lbs. 

Tonnage 1538 

Crew 460 

Horiiet. 

Guns 20 

Weight of metal 594 lbs. 

Tonnage 460 

Crew 162 



British — Concluded. 
Macedonian. 

Guns 44 

Weight of metal 1056 lbs. 

Tonnage 1081 

Crew 254 

Java. 

Guns 44 

Weight of metal 1016 lbs. 

(Crew and tonnage not 
known to writer.) 

Peacock. 

Guns 18 

Weight of metal 384 lbs. 

Tonnage 386 

Crew no 



236 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

thirteen thousand American troops at Plattsburg, under General 
Dearborn, threatening the approaches to Montreal. To oppose 
this army Sir George Prevost had but three thousand men. At 
Sackett's Harbour lay twenty-two hundred Americans, with five 
thousand more on Lake Champlain to back them ; while the Cana- 
dian frontier opposite, from Kingston to Prescott, had but fifteen 
hundred defenders in all. The Niagara frontier, defended by 
twenty-three hundred of our troops, was menaced by five thousand 
of the enemy. In the west, Detroit and Amherstburg were held 
by Colonel Proctor with a force of about twenty-two hundred. 
Proctor was opposed by an American force slightly smaller, but of 
high quality, consisting in the main of Kentucky riflemen. It was 
led by General Harrison, the victor of Tippecanoe. Here, where 
they were afterwards to win their chief success of the war, the 
Americans seemed at first doomed only to disaster. Harrison 
had advanced half of his army, under General Winchester, to 
Frenchtown on the River Raisin, when Proctor, seeing the enemy 
divided, attacked in force (Jan. 22, 18 13). The batde was a 
fierce one. These Kentucky Americans, though heavily outnum- 
bered, were well led and knew how to fight. Not till nearly half 
their number were dead or disabled did they lay down their 
arms, and surrender five hundred prisoners of war, with stores 
and ammunition, into the hands of our little army. For this 
victory Proctor was made a brigadier-general. 

The next important events of the campaign took place further 
east. The Americans, crossing the St. Lawrence on the ice, 

made a raid on Brockville, sacked the houses, 
The capture ' ' 

ofOgdens- wounded a sentry, and carried off fifty-two of the 
peaceful inhabitants as prisoners. This act was of 
no importance in itself, but it led to a brilliant reprisal. Oppo- 
site the Canadian village of Prescott lay the American fortified 
town of Ogdensburg, well armed and garrisoned, with eleven guns 
and five hundred troops. The St. Lawrence between Ogdensburg 
and Prescott was frozen over, and on the level surflice, near their 
own shore, the Canadian companies were wont to drill. On the 



OGDENSBURG STORMED. 237 

morning of the 22nd February Colonel Macdonell led a force of 
four hundred and eighty men, with two field-pieces, out upon the 
ice, and began the customary evolutions. Some of the Americans 
on the Ogdensburg ramparts thought this play looked unusually 
like serious work ; but their commander, laughing at the idea of 
his strong position being threatened with so weak a force, went on 
with his breakfast. Suddenly the Canadians, having worked their 
way to mid-river, made a fierce rush upon the town. The Ameri- 
cans, awaking to their danger, met them with volleys of can- 
non and musketry, but could not stop their advance. At the 
point of the bayonet they carried the town, the garrison retreat- 
ing into the woods behind, with a loss of seventy-five in killed and 
wounded, eleven cannon, large military stores, and four armed 
ships which were burnt as they lay in the harbour. In the honour 
of this exploit many parts of the empire had share ; for the victo- 
rious band was made up of one hundred and twenty English regu- 
lars, forty men of the Royal Newfoundland regiment, and three 
hundred and twenty Canadian militia, of whom some were Glen- 
garry Highlanders and some French of the St. Lawrence. New 
Brunswick, too, was represented. The right wing of the attack, 
which charged straight in the teeth of the main battery, was led 
by a son of New Brunswick, Captain Jenkins of the Glengarries. 
The honour of this deed was not tarnished by any robbery or 
violence, in spite of the fact that the Americans had ruthlessly 
plundered Brockville. Macdonell would not let his followers help 
themselves to so much as a twist of tobacco ; and he even paid 
the American teamsters ^4.00 a day for their labour ifi hauling the 
military stores across to Prescott. 

The American fleet, equipped in haste by Commodore Chaun- 
cey, now controlled Lake Ontario, and the few ships at Kingston 

could not stir outside the harbour. The capital of 

Little York. 
Upper Canada, the httle town of York, was not m any 

sense a military post. It had no defences but an old French 

earthwork once built to resist the Indians, and three old French 

guns, without carriages, commanding the entrance to the harbour. 



238 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

It was wholly without strategic importance ; and no one dreamed 
that it would be regarded by the Americans as an object of 
attack. It was a mere residence village of about a thousand 
inhabitants, open at all points, and important only as being the 
seat of legislature, — which, in case of need, could be established 
just as well at any other point. 

The Americans, however, with all their fleet and a land-force of 
twenty-five hundred men, attacked the defenceless village. Gen- 
eral Sheaffe was passing through York at the time, with 

The Amen- 100 ' 

cans sack two companies of the King's Own ; and the civilians 

York. ^ '^ ' 

of the town, old men and boys, invalids and wounded, 
whoever could for a brief space shoulder a musket, rallied to the 
defence, till Sheaffe found himself with a force of nearly six hun- 
dred to oppose the onslaught. The unequal contest, however, was 
soon over ; and Sheaffe withdrew toward Kingston while the vol- 
unteers covered his retreat. The Americans then took possession 
of the town. Numbers of them swarmed into the so-called fort, 
where a handful of militia were yet attempting a vain defence. At 
this juncture, and for cause never explained, the powder maga- 
zine blew up, involving assailant and defender in a common ruin. 
After this catastrophe York surrendered, the militia laid down their 
arms, and all mihtary stores were given up to the conquerors. By 
the terms of the surrender the town was to be protected ; but the 
enemy, professing to beUeve that the explosion was a deliberate 
act of treachery on the part of the Canadians, broke the agree- 
ment, burned the public buildings ^ with all their records, pillaged 
the church, and sacked the public library. They showed their 
taste for things intellectual by carrying off every book. They also 
looted and destroyed a number of private houses. A few days later 
the invaders withdrew. During their absence Sir George Prevost 
had attacked their headquarters at Sackett's Harbour. When appar- 
ently on the point of capturing this important post, he had suddenly 
withdrawn, to the bewildered indignation of his followers. 

1 It is said that a periwig, which they found hanging to the Speaker's chair in 
ilie Parliament House, was mistaken for a human scalp, and carried off to serve as 
proof of Canadian barbarism. 



STONY CREEK. 



239 



The Americans now turned their arms with fresh vigour against 
the Niagara frontier. The victorious fleet and army under 
Chauncey sailed from devastated York to attack Fort George 
and the little town of Newark that lay beneath its guns. This 
post was held by Colonel Vincent with thirteen hundred men, 
while an army of some six thousand threatened it from _. „ 

^ The Cana- 

the other side of the river. The Americans, swarming dians driven 

° back from 

to shore under cover of a terrific fire from the ships, Niagara and 

Chippewa, 
were this time ably led, and fought with spirit. Again 

and again they were repulsed ; but at length Vincent was driven 
back with heavy loss by the fire from Chauncey's ships. The 
Canadian general called in the troops that held Chippewa and 
Fort Erie, blew up the ramparts of Fort George, and retreated to 
a new position at Beaver Dam, about twelve miles from Niagara. 
The garrisons of Chippewa and Fort Erie had now swelled Vin- 
cent's force to sixteen hundred. The Americans pur- 

1 • -1 r r £ 1 J 1 stony Creek, 

suing him with a force of twenty-five hundred men 

and eight field-pieces, he continued his retreat to Burlington 
Heights. The enemy advanced to a stream known as Stony 
Creek, where they encamped for the night. 

Relieved from immediate pressure, Vincent sent out a strong 
reconnoitring party under Colonel Harvey,^ to examine the enemy's 
position. Finding the entrenchments carelessly guarded, Harvey 
made a daring attack in the darkness. I'he American soldiers, 
rudely awakened, sprang up about their glimmering camp-fires 
and stood their ground bravely for a time. But they were be- 
wildered and without discipline. After a blind struggle they were 
routed at the point of the bayonet ; and their two generals, 
Winder and Chandler, with one hundred other prisoners and four 
field-pieces, fell into Harvey's hands (June 5th, 1813). 

Vincent at once followed up the retreat of the invaders, and 
sent a small advance party to reoccupy the position of Beaver Dam. 
This dangerous duty was entrusted to Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon, 

1 Afterwards Sir John Harvey, governor of New Brunswick, and one of the 
bravest and most skilful officers in the service. 



240 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

with but thirty British regulars and thirty Mohawk Indians. A few 

miles to the rear, where now stands St. Catherine's, lay Major de 

Haren with two hundred men. The Americans, smart- 
Beaver Dam. . 1 , ■ 1 r 1 1 • , • 

ing under their defeat, planned to surprise this outpost. 
One Colonel Boerstler, with five hundred and fifty men and two 
field guns of the 14th United States regiment, was despatched 
with great secrecy on the enterprise. 

In spite of all precautions, however, news of the plan got 
abroad. It reached the ears of James Secord, a wounded Cana- 
dian mihtiaman of Queenston. Unable himself to carry the alarm 
to Fitzgibbon, his wife undertook the perilous and difficult errand. 

She succeeded : and the name of Laura Secord was 
Laura Secord. 

written high among those of Canada's heroines. At 

dawn she set forth, eluding the hostile sentry by pretending to 
milk a cow, which she gradually drove before her into the woods. 
Once out of sight, she ran. Through twenty miles of wild forest 
she forced her way, now startled by the rattlesnake, now trembling 
at the cry of the wolf, till late in the day she was stopped by the 
sentinel Mohawks, who carried her before Fitzgibbon with her 
tidings. Heaped with praise and gratitude, she was taken to a 
farmhouse near by and tenderly cared for. 

Fitzgibbon at once sent word back to de Haren. Then he 
threw out his Indians along the line of approach, and awaited the 
attack. About dawn the American column encountered the 
Indians, who, by firing irregularly, yelling terrifically, and keeping 
well out of sight, managed to convey the impression that their 
numbers were formidable. Hearing the noise of the fight, three 
young Canadian militiamen named Kelly, at work on their farm 
near by, ran for their guns and hastened to the scene. They were 
joined by seven or eight more muskets, summoned from other 
farms by the sound. Hiding behind trees the Canadians opened 
fire, from a direction in which no attack was looked for. The 
enemy threw out skirmishers and pressed on, but in growing con- 
fusion. The front of their column became disorganized. Their 
commander quite lost his wits. Suddenly they were met by Fitz- 



FORT SCHLOSSER AND BLACK ROCK. 



241 



gibbon at the head of his bold thirty, advancing with a flag of truce. 
The suggestion of a truce was now much to Boerstler's fancy. 
He was told by Fitzgibbon that de Haren, with reinforcements, 
was close by. He saw before him a resolute array of red coats. 
The Indians, in the woods on both flanks, yelled assiduously, with 
scalping-knives and horrors in their cry. Those eleven Canadian 
mihtiamen kept up their rude assault upon the rear. Boerstler 
felt himself entrapped. Much worried, he hurriedly surrendered 
his whole force. Fitzgibbon was embarrassed, however, by such 
haste. Taking refuge in politeness, he kept the American officers 
a long time busy in drawing up the articles of capitulation ; till at 
last de Haren arrived with his two hundred bayonets and released 
him from the awkward situation (June 24, 18 13). 

After this stroke General Dearborn resigned his command, to 
be succeeded by General Boyd. About the same time the gov- 
ernorship of Upper Canada was given to General de Rottenburg, 
who thus superseded both Sheafife and Vincent. For a time there 
was inaction along the Niagara frontier, broken only by the suc- 
cessful raid of Colonel Clark, of the Lincoln militia, 

' FortSchlos- 

against the American post of Fort Schlosser, and ser and Black 

Rock. 

Colonel Bishopp's attack on the American naval depot 

at Black Rock. This attack was entirely successful, resulting in 

the destruction of valuable stores ; but it cost Canada the life of 

Colonel Bishopp, a brave and judicious officer to whom both the 

regulars and the militia were attached. 

About this time Commodore Chauncey with his fleet made 

another descent on the unfortunate provincial capital, "Little 

York," burned the barracks, carried off" public and 

' ^ Battle of the 

private stores, and destroyed some small boats. But fleets on Lake 

meanwhile his supremacy on Lake Ontario had been 

Ijrought into question. The Canadian fleet in Kingston harbour had 

been reinforced by the arrival of Sir James Yeo with four hundred 

and fifty British seamen. Sir James had only six ships to the 

American fourteen, but he sailed from Kingston, captured some 

depots on the south shore of the lake, and then challenged Chaun- 



242 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

cey to come out of Niagara and fight. Nothing leth, the' Ameri- 
can commodore accepted the challenge. Nor was the contest so 
uneven as might appear from the numbers on each side, for the 
Canadian ships were somewhat larger and more heavily armed 
than their adversaries. The Americans, however, were much the 
superior in speed and in the range of their guns, and they foiled 
all Sir James's efforts to bring them to close quarters. During the 
battle two of the American vessels were captured. Two more 
were upset in a squall, and all on board lost save sixteen whom 
the British boats picked up. After these losses Chauncey declined 
to fight it out, and retired under the guns of Fort Niagara. 

On Lake Erie, however, the strife for naval supremacy had a 

different ending. On the loth day of September the Canadian 

fleet of six ships, under Captain Barclay, fought the 

i.y 3.113. (11 3.11 C1C~ 

feat on Lake American fleet of ten ships, under Commodore Perry, 
and suffered a most disastrous defeat. The battle was 
a desperate one, and Barclay fought with stubborn valour ; but in 
the end every one of his ships was taken or destroyed. In this 
case, again, the battle was not so unequal as would appear from 
the numbers on each side, as the Canadian ships were the larger 
and carried the heavier broadsides. 

This disaster brought another on its heels. Proctor, at Detroit, 
was cut off from his supplies. He determined to give up Detroit, 
evacuate the western country, and fall back on Burlington Heights. 
Dismantling his fortifications and taking the guns with him, he 
retreated up the valley of the Thames. His force, including 
Tecumseh's five hundred warriors, numbered between thirteen and 
fourteen hundred. He was followed with great energy by General 
Harrison, at the head of an army which had by this time swelled 
to over three thousand. 

And now came the humiliating defeat of Moravian Town. 
Proctor halted his army before Moravian Town, in a strong posi- 
tion, with the current of the Thames on his left, a dense cedar 
swamp on his right, and a front of only about three hundred yards 
to defend. The swamp was securely held by Tecumseh and his 



MORAVIAN TOWN. 243 

Indians. For this position his force should have been ample, even 
if ten times outnumbered by the enemy. But he seems to have 
neglected the most ordinary precautions in the mat- 

X 116 u,lS3.ST6r 

ter of scouts and skirmishers. By felling trees in his of Moravian 

■' . ° Town. 

front he might have protected himself with an im- 
penetrable abatis ; but this obvious duty he neglected. Harri- 
son's Kentucky riflemen, moving with great swiftness, were upon 
him before he realized their approach. The Canadian front was 
shattered at the iirst rush. The battle was over ere well begun, 
and Proctor with his staff was in full flight for Burlington. The 
troops seemed to have had no confidence in their leader, for they 
had not lost a score in killed and wounded before they broke. 
The Indians alone were men that shameful day. They held their 
ground and fought heroically when their white allies had fled. In 
the wild mel^e the brave Tecumseh fell, a stroke more grievous 
than the defeat itself. The victors in their triumphant hatred dis- 
graced themselves by mutilating the body of the dead hero, who, 
savage though he was called, had ever set them an example of 
humanity, moderation, and justice. Proctor, for his conduct on 
this sorry occasion, was court-martialed, and dismissed from the 
service. 

Some slight compensation for the disasters of Lake Erie and 
Moravian Town was granted by Fate, meanwhile, on Lake 
Champlain. The Americans, with their heavily armed „, 
sloops-of-war, Eade and Growler, commanded the and 

^ 'A ' Growler. 

lake. The gate of Lower Canada was barred, as of 
old, at Isle aux Noix. Here, expecting attack, the Canadian 
commander, Colonel Taylor, equipped three small gunboats ; and 
having no sailors, manned them with soldiers from his regiment. 
When the American ships attacked, they met with a surprisingly 
hot reception. After a four hours' battle they were both captured. 
Soon afterwards, under the Red Cross of England's marine, they 
swept the American flag from the lake. 

A httle later the army of the North, the most numerous and 
hitherto least active division of the enemy's forces, made a double 



244 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

movement on Montreal. One section, consisting of seven thou- 
sand men under General Wade Hampton, advanced from Lake 
Chateau- Champlain to the Chateauguay River, with the inten- 
^"^^' tion of descending that stream to its mouth and cross- 

ing thence to the head of Montreal Island. The other section, 
consisting of eight thousand men under General Wilkinson, was to 
operate from Sackett's Harbour, and descend the St. Lawrence in 
boats to join Hampton at Lachine. To hold the frontier against 
Hampton's advance stood a scattered force of about sixteen 
hundred men, of whom three hundred and fifty, chiefly French 
Canadian Voltigeurs with a handful of Glengarry Fencibles, formed 
a corps of observation far to the front. This body of troops 
was under the command of the brave de Salaberry, a member 
of the old French Canadian noblesse, who had won distinction 
fighting England's battles in foreign lands. De Salaberry had 
already repulsed an attack of Hampton's on the little forest out- 
post of Odelltown. Now he hastened to throw himself in the 
path of the march on Chateauguay. In a tract of difficult forest, 
intersected by four parallel ravines, with the river on the left and 
a swamp on his right, he threw up his defences. Half a mile to 
the rear was a ford of the river, whereat he posted a small party 
of Beauharnois mihtia, supported by a band of Glengarries under 
Macdonell, the victor of Ogdensburg. The Americans came on 
in two divisions, one, under General Izzard, attacking in front, the 
other, led by Colonel Purdy, moving down the further bank of the 
river to force the ford. The front attack was hurled back in con- 
fusion. Not an American bayonet got inside the breastworks- 
All through the fight the Canadian buglers kept blowing, and the 
menacing brass resounded at such widely separate points that the 
invaders thought the whole Canadian army was before them. 
Presently the attack in front weakened. That on the ford, mean- 
while, was pressed in great force. The defenders fell back slowly. 
The enemy followed, till all at once, reaching a bend in the river, 
they found themselves exposed to a deadly flank fire from de Sala- 
berry's lines. They broke and fled back into the bushes, and were 



CHRYSLER'S FARM. 245 

fired upon by advancing parties of their own men who mistook 
them for the victorious Canadians. Then wild panic seized the 
invading army ; and the path of its flight was strewn with knap- 
sacks, drums, muskets, and camp equipage. The defeat of the 
three thousand five hundred by the three hundred and fifty was 
overwhehning in its completeness. The victory of Chateauguay, 
let it be remembered, was a victory of the French Canadian 
militia, led by their own officers ; and it was perhaps the most 
glorious in the whole course of a war which brought much glory 
to our arms.^ 

General Wilkinson, meanwhile, was lingering at Sackett's Har- 
bour. Not till the 3rd of November did he get his army under 
way. In a flotilla of three hundred batteaux, escorted Chrysler's 
by gunboats, he began the descent of the St. Law- ^^'■'"• 
rence ; and twelve hundred of his troops marched abreast of him 
down the south shore of the river. When well beyond the batteries 
of Prescott this force crossed to the Canadian side, and was rein- 
forced till its ranks numbered something under three thousand. 
Close on the heels of the invaders followed a force of eight hun- 
dred British regulars and Canadian militia from Kingston, cease- 
lessly harassing their march. This little army, a mere corps of 
observation, was commanded by Colonel Morrison, and accom- 
panied by the daring Harvey, victor of Stony Creek. A little 
beyond Williamsburg, at a spot whose name is one of the unfor- 
gettable names of our history, the attacks of the Canadian skir- 
mishers on the American rear became too galling to be borne. 
The invaders turned, at their general's orders, to "brush away the 
annoyance." It was in the fields of " Chrysler's Farm " that they 
took up their position, and angrily faced their handful of tor- 
mentors. The battle took place in the afternoon of Nov. 12th. 
In spite of their numbers the Americans were utterly routed and 
driven to their boats. Sick, and dejected from such a reverse, 

1 The victors of Chateauguay were specially honoured by England. Every 
soldier engaged was decorated with a medal. De Salaberry himself was knighted, 
being made a Commander of the Bath. 



246 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Wilkinson pressed on down the river, expecting to join Hampton's 
forces. At R^gis he heard of the rout of Chateauguay. The 
attack on Montreal was at once abandoned, and the American 
army went into winter quarters. 

The closing acts of the campaign of 18 13 were not war, but 
reprisal. In December, General Sir George Drummond was put 
in command of the forces in Upper Canada. He ordered an 
attack on Fort George, — rather uselessly, as Fort George was 
commanded by Fort Niagara opposite, and was therefore of no 
great value to either side. On the approach of the 

Repnsals on ^ ^ ^ 

the Niagara Canadian column General McClure abandoned the 

frontier. 

place and retired to the American side. But before 
departing he left a legacy of hate by burning the town of Newark, 
and casting all the inhabitants, old and young, sick and well, adrift 
in the storm of a wild December night. This senseless barbarism 
brought swift retribution. The angry Canadians crossed the river, 
stormed Fort Niagara, burned Lewiston, burned Buffalo, and 
wasted the whole Niagara frontier. 

To turn once more from the Lakes to the sea, we find that the 
summer of this year brought some compensation to England for 
the maritime disasters of 181 2. Early in June, while the American 
frigate Chesapeake was refitting in the port of Boston, the British 
frigates Shannon and Tenedos appeared off the harbour. The 
Shannon, a fine ship carrying 52 guns, manned with a full and 

well-drilled crew, was commanded by Captain Broke, 

The Chesa- ' . ... 

peakea.ndthe who burned to wipe out the humiliations which the 

Shannon. •■in i i rr ^ r^ T 

British flag had suffered on the sea. Sending away 
the Tenedos, he despatched a formal challenge to Captain Law- 
rence of the Chesapeake, asking for " the honour of a meeting" 
to try the fortunes of our flags." Lawrence, a gallant officer, 
accepted with enthusiasm. On June nth he sailed out of port,^ 
all ready for battle ; and in his wake swarmed gaily the pleasure 
boats and yachts of Boston, eager to witness another triumph over 
the mistress of the seas. The two ships were well matched, each 
carrying 52 guns. But the Chesapeake had a small advantage in 



THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE. 247 

weight of broadside, in tonnage, and in the numbers of her 
crew.^ The battle was desperate but brief. Under a terrific can- 
nonade from all the guns which they could bring to bear, the eager 
antagonists closed. The moment they came together and grappled, 
the Shannon^s crew boarded their foe, swarming over the bul- 
warks cutlass in hand, swinging across from yard-arm and rigging. 
At the head of his men, fighting fiercely, Lawrence fell mortally 
wounded. In fifteen minutes from the first broadside the Chesa- 
peake's flag came down ; and the Shannon had won back the old 
prestige of England's ships. The victorious Broke sailed away 
with his prize to Halifax ; and there, with military honours, the 
slain captain was buried. At the tidings of this triumph a chorus 
of joy went up from English tongues. 

To the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the cam- 
paign of 1 8 13 brought no great actions, though the stir of military 
preparation kept Halifax excited and made trade brisk Echoes of the 
throughout the neighbouring counties. Halifax fur- Maritime^ 
ther profited from the fact that prizes captured off the Provinces. 
American coast were brought into her port to be sold. Ameri- 
can privateers, now and again, swooped down upon the coast, 
doing some damage. Annapolis in particular, so surely does his- 
tory repeat itself, felt the weight of this scourge. Chester, too, was 
harried more than once \ and the fertile vale of the Cornwallis 
was raided. But all the damage inflicted by privateers ^ was far 
more than made up by the profits of the contraband trade which 
our seaboard countrymen carried on with shrewd diligence. Be- 



1 American. 
Chesapeake. 

Guns 52 

Weight of metal iiSolbs. 

Tonnage 1135 

Crew 376 



British. 

Shanno7i. 

Guns 52 

Weight of metal 1070 lbs. 

Tonnage 1066 

Crew 306 



2 In Mahone Bay took place the affair of the Young Teazer. This noted 
American privateer was chased up the bay by two British vessels. Overtaken at 
last, the crew fought desperately ; but as she was on the point of surrender she 
was blown up, and only eight of her men escaped. This wholesale destruction was 
the work of a British deserter, who knew that for him capture meant hanging, and 
who therefore chose to fire the magazine. 



248 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ing the boldest and readiest of sailors, moreover, the Nova Sco- 
tians and New Brunswickers took pattern from their foe ; and 
in secluded ports of the Atlantic and Fundy shore were fitted 
out swift privateers, whose successful cruises laid the foundation 
of many a provincial fortune. 

75. The Campaign of 1814. — During the next winter reinforce- 
ments were brought into Canada, in preparation for the sharp work 
that seemed to threaten on the opening of spring. In February a 
portion of the 8th regiment accomplished the painful march from 
Fredericton to the St. Lawrence, over the route already marked 
out by the 104th. By the same route came two hundred and 
fiftv British seamen for service on the Lakes. 

Though the autumn advance on Montreal had been so rudely 
checked, the Americans had not relinquished their plan of attack 
in that quarter. About the end of March they moved from Platts- 
burg with five thousand men, crossed the border, and assailed the 
Canadian Canadian position at La Colle mill. The position was 
Coiie mm ^^ ^ strong one, and was held by Major Handcock with 
v?c1;w-y a^''^" about five hundred men. The mill was a massive stone 
Chippewa. structure of two stories, further strengthened by heavy 
beams, and well fitted for defence. Against this small outpost Wil- 
kinson threw his whole force. After several hours of fighting, in the 
course of which the intrepid little garrison showed its spirit by an 
audacious sortie, the Americans retired. Upon this rebuff Wilkin- 
son resigned his command ; and the Champlain frontier was left 
at peace for a time, while the centre of war shifted back to L^pper 
Canada. In May an expedition from Kingston captured Oswego 
and destroyed the fort. On the Niagara frontier the Americans 
took Fort Erie, thus compensating themselves for the loss of Fort 
Niagara. Our little army in this district, consisting of two thou- 
sand men with a few field guns, was now under command of Gen- 
eral Riall. On July 5, 1S14, Riall attacked the x\merican army 
of thrice his strength, near Chippewa, and was beaten off after a 
hard fight. 

Some weeks later, General Drummond arrived with reinforce- 



LUNDY'S LANE. 



249 



merits; and on July 26th was fought the battle of Lundy's Lane, 
or, as the American historians call it, Drummondville. Lundy's 
Lane was the most hotly contested battle of the war. On the 
Canadian side were some two thousand eight hun- 

° The battle 

dred regulars and militia, under General Drummond ; of Lundy's 

. Lane, 

while the Americans, under General Brown, numbered 

about five thousand. The road called Lundy's Lane, running 
within earshot of the giant cataract, was seized by Drummond 
at the beginning of the battle, and formed the key of the position. 
The fight began at five in the afternoon. It was a confused and 
desperate struggle, so close that more than once the opposing 
cannon were thundering muzzle to muzzle. The green lane was 
heaped with dead and dying. Once the foe gained possession, 
but held it not for long. Backwards and forwards swayed the 
deadly grapple, through the twilight, then through the dark. 
The sky was thick with clouds, but at times a white finger of 
moonlight touched wonderingly the scene of carnage. Toward 
nine o'clock there was a pause, and the roar of Niagara sounded 
heavily over the sudden hush. Then with fresh strength and fury 
the matched antagonists sprang at each other's throats. Till near 
midnight, with varying but well-balanced fortunes, the struggle 
went on. At last the Americans retired and fell back on their 
camp at Chippewa, leaving many hundreds of dead and wounded 
on the field. On the following day they threw their heavy bag- 
gage into the river, and fled ^ to Fort Erie, destroying the Chip- 
pewa bridge behind them. 

Drummond followed the American retreat, and laid siege to 
Fort Erie ; but there he was so roughly handled by the enemy 

in two dashing sorties that he raised the siege and fell 

*= ^ The defeat of 

back on Chippewa. In this position the two armies Prevostat 
, J , , r 1 • , • Plattsburgr. 

watched each other tor weeks, with no important move- 
ment on either side. The edge of battle shifted to other and widely 

1 Some American historians, who quite ignore Chateauguay and Chrysler's 
Farm, claim Lundy's Lane as an American victory. It is hard to find their 
grounds for such a claim, or to reconcile it with this burning of bridges and cast- 
ing of baggage into the river. 



250 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

separate points. In August an American expedition went northward 
and attacked the fort at Michilimackinac. The enterprise ended 
disastrously for them, the plucky garrison not only beating back its 
assailants but capturing two of their vessels. In September Sir 
George Prevost undertook the reduction of Plattsburg, the Ameri- 
can headquarters on Lake Champlain, and failed ignominiously. 

This disaster came just when great things were expected of 
Prevost. England and her allies had triumphed in the Old 
World. Napoleon had been driven from the throne of France 
to the narrow isle of Elba. The power of England was free to 
move in America. The whole coast, from the Gulf of Mexico to 
Nova Scotia, was declared under blockade, and British fleets 
threatened every port. At the same time strong reinforcements 
were sent to Lower Canada, and Prevost was directed to strike a 
decisive blow on Lake Champlain. With thirteen thousand choice 
troops, many of them veterans of Wellington's Spanish campaigns, 
he moved up the shores of the lake. Abreast of his march sailed a 
fleet of sloops and gunboats, with one small frigate, under Captain 
Downie. The American fleet lay under the gims of Plattsburg. 
Prevost's plan of battle provided that the land-force should storm 
the entrenchments while Downie was destroying the American ships. 
But the American ships proved too tough a morsel. The battle 
was a stubborn one. The brave Downie was killed, and his fleet was 
shattered. Daunted by the disaster Sir George withdrew precipi- 
tately, leaving many of his wounded on the field. This astonish- 
ing retreat he explained by saying that Plattsburg would be of no 
use to him now that the destruction of the fleet had lost him the 
command of the lake. But his army was filled with rage. Many 
of the officers broke their swords in fury at the disgrace. A few 
months later Prevost was summoned home to England to be tried 
for incompetency ; but he fell sick on the journey, and died 
before the trial took place. It is said that when actually under 
fire this unfortunate general displayed great personal bravery ; , 
but it is certain that he lacked resolution in emergency, and that 
he had not the courage of his responsibUities. 



SEIZURE OF EASTERN MAINE. 25 I 

In the Maritime Provinces the summer of 18 14 was marked by 
some activity. Sir John Sherbrooke was governor of Nova Scotia. 
He concluded that the time was ripe for extending „ „ ^. 

^ ° Nova Scotia 

British claims over the old disputed territory of Maine, takes pos- 

^ ■' session of 

In July he organized an expedition against Eastport, eastern 

captured it, and made the citizens take the oath of 

allegiance to the British Crown. In September he stretched his 

hand westward to the Penobscot, seizing the towns of Castine and 

Bangor, and proclaiming British authority over the surrounding 

region, which had once been a part of Acadie. He accomplished 

the bold enterprise with little opposition and no bloodshed, the 

people accepting the new rule with good grace. During the rest 

of the war all this district was under Sherbrooke's administration. 

The customs receipts were carried to Nova Scotia, and constituted 

what was known as the Castine Fund. It amounted to nearly 

^40,000, most of which, a few years later, went to the founding 

of Dalhousie College in Halifax. 

Meanwhile, far to the south, England was pushing hard against 

her adversary. A fleet, under Admiral Cochran, sailed into 

Chesapeake Bay and bombarded Fort McHenry, the 

defence of Baltimore. The fleet carried a land-force defeated at 

New Orleans. 

under General Ross, which took Washington. In 
retaliation for the destruction of York, the Capitol and other 
public buildings were burned. Meanwhile the Commissioners of 
Great Britain and the United States were sitting in council at 
Ghent, in the Netherlands; and at last they managed to agree 
upon terms of peace. On the day before Christmas, 1814, the 
Treaty of Ghent was signed. By its provisions each nation 
restored all lands taken during the war. The tidings of peace, 
however, were slow in reaching the New World, and in January 
was fought a fierce and bloody battle. The city of New Orleans 
was attacked by General Pakenham with a strong force. The 
defenders of the city were mostly raw militia, and they were 
heavily outnumbered by the British ; but they had ingeniously 
strengthened their breastworks with cotton bales and bags of 



252 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



sand, and under the command of a vigorous and warlike leader. 
General Andrew Jackson, they fought with admirable courage. 
In vain the British hurled themselves against the novel breast- 
works. The long lines of cotton bales streamed with a murder- 
ous fire, and two thousand British soldiers fell before them. The 
result was the defeat and death of Pakenham, and for Jackson a 
flood of popular adoration which by-and-by carried him to the 
White House. 

The war was now done. To the Americans it had brought 
little but disaster. They had gone into it in a spirit of deliberate 
and wanton aggression, and with so little excuse that one of their 

greatest statesmen, Quincy, could say on the floors of 
war for Congress — " Since the invasion of the Buccaneers, 

there is nothing in history more disgraceful than this 
war." They had invaded the lands of an unoffending people, 
whom they first vainly tried to seduce from their allegiance, and 
then visited with fire and pillage. They came out of the war 
with few victories to their credit, but smarting under many and 
humiliating defeats. They came out of it with their great mercan- 
tile marine destroyed (England took three thousand of their ships), 
their foreign commerce ruined, two-thirds of their merchants bank- 
rupt. Their export trade had fallen from ^100,000,000 to less 
than ^8,000,000 ; their imports from $140,000,000 to $15,000,000. 
For all their expenditure of blood and treasure, they could show 
no great wrong righted, no foot of added territory, — nothing, in- 
deed, but such a record as a proud people loves not to dwell 
upon. 

To Canada, on the other hand, the war was fruitful of glory. 
Its results are potent in our blood to this day. Some of the 
most splendid and decisive victories of the war were won by the 
Canadian militia. These victories taught us our ability to defend 
our wide frontier even against overwhelming numbers. They 
taught us, too, that in a flagrantly unjust war, — a war of offence, 
— the great kindred republic on our borders could not put forth 
all its strength, being hampered by the national conscience. Just 



RESULTS OF THE WAR. 253 

as England was weak in the war of American Independence, be- 
cause her people doubted the righteousness of her cause, so the 

United States proved weak in the war of 181 2, be- 

^ . ' Results of 

cause their wisest sons, their most enlightened com- war to 

Canada, 
munities, refused to support the wanton aggression of 

the government. Canada gained, by this baptism of fire, a mar- 
tial self-reliance, the germs of a new spirit of patriotism. She 
learned that, whether of French or English blood, Scotch, Irish, 
or German, her sons were one in loyal valour when the enemy 
came against her gates. Her devastated homes, the blood of her 
sons, these were not too great a price to pay for the bond of 
brotherhood between the scattered provinces. The bond that 
then first made itself felt, from Cape Breton to the Straits of 
Mackinaw, grew secretly but surely in power till it proclaimed 
itself to the world in Confederation, and reached out to islands of 
the Pacific. To crown its work there is wanting now only that 
" Ancient Colony " which sits in the portals of the Gulf and wraps 
her austere shoulders in her cloak of fogs and suspicion. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SECTIONS: — 76, the North-west; 1789-1835. 77, Strife in 
Politics, Growth in Population. 78, Political Strife in 
Lower Canada. 

76. The North-west ; 1789-1835. — Far aloof from the pomp 

and circumstance of war, amid solitude and ceaseless hardship, 

^^•^ went on the exploration and beginnings of settlement 
Rivalry of the ^ & & 

Hudson Bay of what is now our great North-west. The moving 

and North- ° ° 

west Com- force in that vast region was the fur-trade. The 
panies. 

Hudson Bay Company, with its lonely posts at the 

mouths of rivers, on the shores of the great sea from which it 
took its name, was forced by its active Montreal rival, the North- 
west Company, to push its power all over the interior. North- 
ward to the Arctic circle, westward to the Rockies, and at last 
to the very Pacific, spread the stockaded posts of the rival com- 
panies, sometimes rising almost side by side, but always with 
fierce jealousies that too often broke out in bloodshed. The 
employes of the Hudson Bay Company were chiefly men from 
the Orkney Islands, those of the North-west Company French 
Canadians. These hardy adventurers took themselves wives from 
among the tribes of the land ; and there sprang up in time a race 
of half-breeds, almost as wild as their savage mothers, but capable 
in affairs, and susceptible to education. They came to be a 
mighty factor in the making of the North-west. 

The most famous name in North-west exploration is that of 
Alexander Mackenzie, a Scotch Highlander, who in the latter- 
quarter of the eighteenth century came to the New World as a 

254 



MACKENZIE AND VANCOUVER. 255 

servant of the " Nor'-westers," — as the Montreal company was 
called. His boldness, endurance, and aptitude for leadership 
among the turbulent spirits who surrounded him, pres- Mackenzie 
ently brought him to the front. In the summer of 1789, ti^e explorer. 
Mackenzie set out from Fort Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, 
and with four birch-bark canoes went north by the Slave River to 
the Great Slave Lake. Thence he descended the huge river that 
bears his name, till near the end of July he came out upon the 
Arctic Ocean. After this feat he returned to England for a year 
of study, in order that he might be able to determine more accu- 
rately the positions and characteristics of his future discoveries, 
and so give his records more scientific value. His next achieve- 
ment was the ascent of the Peace River from Fort Chippewyan, 
through a gap in the Rockies, to its source in what is now our 
splendid Pacific province of British Columbia. Thence, through 
tremendous difficulties and endless perils, he made his way to the 
Pacific coast. To commemorate this triumph the exultant ex- 
plorer took a quantity of vermilion, such as the Indians used, 
mixed it with grease, and on the face of a cliff overlooking the 
waves inscribed the following words — " Alexander Mackenzie 
from Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand 
seven hundred and ninety-three." 

About this time Captain George Vancouver, following the path 
which Captain Cook had already made memorable (i 778-1 779), 
was exploring the British Columbian coast, and dis- 

^ ° Vancouver on 

puting with the Spaniards the possession of the great the Pacific 

Cod-Sr. 

island which now bears his name. Captain Cook had 
made his landing at Nootka, on the island. Nootka became a 
centre of trade with the Indians of the coast. In 1788 Captain 
John Meares had founded a settlement there, which the Spaniards, 
■claiming all the coast, had destroyed with great barbarity. It 
was to look into this matter that Vancouver was sent to the 
Pacific. The year of his arrival was 1792. He found the Span- 
iards at Nootka, but they withdrew at his bidding ; and the dis- 
pute was referred to arbitration. The decision of the arbitrators 



256 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

gave all the Pacific coast to Great Britain, from California in the 
south to Russian America in the north. In 1792, also, the mouth 
of that great river called by the Spaniards the Oregon was entered 
by an American ship, and renamed by its captain the Columbia. 
By a curious exchange, the patriotism of the American captain 
afterwards furnished a name for a Canadian province, while the 
supplanted Spanish title of the river served to designate an Ameri- 
can state. 

The next name illustrious in the annals of the North-west is 
that of Lord Selkirk, whose colonizing' labours in Prince Edward 
Island and Upper Canada have been already described. In 181 1 
the noble colonizer became interested in the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, and purchased from the company a vast tract of land on 
Red River. This district he named Assiniboia, and 

Lord Sel- ' 

kirk's Red thither he sent, by way of Hudson Bay, a band of 

River colony. > j j j > 

Scotch and Irish numigrants. In 1812 these pioneers, 
heedless of the war-storms further east, settled on the fertile lands 
by the Red River's muddy current, where they were joined from 
year to year by other immigrants till the colony became important 
enough to excite the jealousy of the North-west Company's half- 
breeds. A number of the colonists were presently persuaded by 
a north-western trader to leave Red River and betake themselves 
to Penetanguishene on Georgian Bay ; but their place was soon 
filled by another band sent out by the indefatigable Selkirk. In 
181 6 the hostility of the half-breeds, who claimed the whole 
North-west as their birthright and vaingloriously styled them- 
selves " the New Nation," blazed out in open war. Fort Douglas, 
the centre of the Selkirk settlement, was assaulted, and Semple, 
the governor of the colony, was killed in the struggle. Lord Sel- 
kirk, who was on the way from Montreal with a small party of 
troops for the defence of his colony, was met by the news of 
Semple's death, whereupon he retorted by seizing Fort William, 
an important Nor'-wester post on Lake Superior. After winter- 
ing there he pushed on to the Red River valley and promptly 
brought the half-breeds to submission. Thus troubled was the 



THE COUNCIL OF ASSINIBOIA. 257 

birth of the Red River settlement, which half a century later was 
to become the " Prairie Province " of Manitoba. 

In 1 82 1 the dangers which still menaced the settlements were 
removed by the union of the North-west and Hudson Bay Com- 
panies, both companies having found the rivalry ruinous. About 
this time a number of Swiss settlers came to Red River, and the 
colony entered upon a period of peaceful growth. In 1835 the 
Red River colony was brought under a regular gov- r^^^ council 
ernment, called the Council of Assiniboia, which con- °* Assimboia. 
tinued to rule its affairs till the purchase of the North-west by the 
Canadian Confederation. The Council of Assiniboia held its ses- 
sions at Fort Garry, the capital of the colony, and was presided 
over by the Hudson Bay Company's governor. Its first president 
was the energetic and masterful Sir George Simpson. 

To the history of the North-west belong the exploits of Sir 
John Franklin and the explorations of George Back. These were 
fruitful of heroism, if not of desirable new lands. York Factory, 
at the mouth of the Nelson, and afterwards Fort Chippewyan, 
were the points of departure for these expeditions. Franklin on 
his first journey (1819-1822) reached the Arctic Sea Arctic expio- 
by way of the Coppermine River, at the mouth of which Frankfin and 
he built a post. On his second expedition (1825- ■^^*^^' 
1827) he descended the Mackenzie River and explored the 
Polar coast to the westward. Back's expedition (1833-1835), de- 
scended the Great Fish River (sometimes called Back's River), 
at the head of which he built Fort Reliance. The final expedition 
of Franldin, that on which he and his followers perished, did not 
set out till 1845. 

77. Strife in Politics, Growth in Population. — For the prov- 
inces of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, the period immediately 
succeeding the war was one of growth in population, of strife in 
politics. Great Britain being now at peace, she found on her 
hands a throng of disbanded soldiers, and ofiicers retired on half 
pay. Besides this fact, the labouring classes in the British Isles 
had been increasing of late much more rapidly than work could 



258 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

be found for them. The government turned its attention to pro- 
moting emigration. Beginning with the "Perth Settlement" of 
disbanded soldiers and their officers, in 18 16, settlers kept flock- 
immigration i'^g i^to both Upper and Lower Canada in yearly in- 
to Canada, creasing numbers. These new-comers were at first 
mainly Scotch and Irish ; but soon the movement extended to 
the English and Welsh as well. It was by no means a pauper 
immigration. In almost all cases it was under strict government 
supervision, and the immigrants were of a sturdy, independent, 
self-respecting class. This fact cannot be too much dwelt upon, 
for on it depends the high average — intellectual, moral, and 
physical — of the Canadian stock. Landing usually at Quebec, 
some of the immigrants were unwiUing to prolong their journey, 
and therefore settled in the surrounding districts. Others went 
south-westward to the Eastern Townships and the valley of the St. 
Francis. Yet others established themselves about Montreal. But 
the greater number kept on into Upper Canada, preferring the 
English laws and institutions under which they had been brought 
up. They spread in bands to all parts of the province, peopling 
new townships, opening in the wHderness new centres of pros- 
perous life. To the beginning of this period belongs the con- 
struction of the Rideau Canal,^ from Kingston to the Ottawa River 
at Chaudiere Falls. Many of the newly arriving settlers took up 
lands about the canal and on the Ottawa, and at the Falls arose a 
busy little lumbering village (1825) called Bytown in honour of 
Colonel By, the engineer who had built the canal. This remote 
settlement of shantymen and lumbermen was destined to become 
our national capital, the beautiful city of Ottawa. 

A powerful factor in this work of peophng the Canadian wilder- 
The Canada ^^^ss was the " Canada Company," incorporated by 
Company. Imperial Parliament in 1826, with a capital of one 
million pounds sterling. The company purchased, in the two prov- 

1 This work was planned by the British government for military purposes, to 
secure communication between Montreal and the Lakes in case of the exposed 
St. Lawrence route falling into an enemy's hands. 



THE CHOLERA YEARS. 259 

inces, vast tracts of land, amounting in all to nearly three million 
acres, on terms requiring the construction of roads and other 
measures of development. The secretary of the company, very 
zealous in its affairs, was a vigorous Scotch man-of-letters, John 
Gait of Ayrshire. To the Canada Company we owe a long roll of 
flourishing settlements, with such busy towns as Gait and Gode- 
rich, and the fine city of Guelph, nicknamed "The Royal City." 
The year of heaviest increase was 1831, when no fewer than 
thirty-four thousand immigrants came to Canada. It is estimated 
that in the four years beginning with 1829 the settlers seeking a 
home within our borders numbered no less than one hundred and 
sixty thousand. This period of our history is well named by a 
Canadian historian^ the period of the "Great Immigration." 

Hand in hand with this immigration came a plague which 
scourged both Upper and Lower Canada (1832-1834). In June 
of 1832 came a ship from Dublin to the St. Lawrence with Asiatic 
cholera on board. She was stopped at the quarantine station 
down the river, but on the day following her arrival the plague 
was already in Quebec, where it seized its thousands The cholera 
of victims. It spread hungrily up the St. Lawrence, y^^""^- 
ravaged Montreal, and swooped down upon the infant towns and 
villages of the Lake province. The frosts of autumn stayed its 
fatal march, and the terrified people had time to mourn their 
dead. They thought themselves safe, and again breathed freely ; 
but two years later the destroyer awoke to new life, and ravaged 
the settlements through the whole of a grievous summer (1834). 

Side by side with peaceful growth in population went on a 
stormy growth in pohtical life. Pohtical struggles constitute, for 
the half century succeeding the war, almost the whole Disputes 
of Canadian history. The contestants are, on the one ecutive^^d' 
side, the people as represented by the Assembly, on p^°p^^- 
the other side the Executive and Legislative councils, usually in 
alliance with the governor. The strife went on in Upper Canada, 

1 Doctor George Bryce, author of "A Short History of the Canadian People." 



26o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, with such variations 
as chance and local differences might be expected to produce ; 
but, at the same time, with such similarities that we are forced to 
seek some one general cause as the base of all the quarrels. In 
one province, religious differences may seem, at first glance, to 
explain the trouble ; in another the root of the difficulty may 
appear to lie in antagonisms of race and language. But these, 
when looked at fairly, prove to be mere accidents. The struggle 
is in fact a constitutional one. It is for the reality of representa- 
tive institutions, — for what is known as Responsible Government. 
The constitutions given to the several provinces in the latter 
part of the preceding century had put the government nominally 
in the hands of the people, but by no means actually so. In fact, 
its functions were usurped by the Executive Council, whose 
members, as we have seen, held office for life and were respon- 
sible to no one. They represented the views and wishes of a 
small and exclusive class, and maintained a show of constitutional 
authority by their connection with the Legislative Council, wherein 
most of them held seats. They were in name the governor's 
advisers ; but circumstances, and the support of the Legislative 
Council, and their own importance, and too often the governor's 
ignorance of provincial affairs, combined to make them his direct- 
ors. Their rule, whether wise or unwise, was the rule of a strict 
oligarchy. It was contrary to the whole spirit of Anglo-Saxon 
freedom. 

Whatever shape the struggle against this oligarchy might take 
on from time to time — "Judges' DisabiUties," "Civil List Bills," 
" Clergy Reserves" — the ultimate object aimed at by the people 
was the control of the governor's advisers. The people de- 
The Family manded that the Executive should be directly respon- 
Compact. g-|jjg ^Q them; — in other words, that the Executive 
should be chosen from among the representatives elected by the 
people, and should retire from office on refusal of the people to 
reelect them. This claim is now admitted as an inalienable right ;' 
but in watching the stress and turmoil of the conflict by which 



STRIFE IN LOWER CANADA. 26 1 

that right was won, we must not forget that the question had two 
sides. The men who strove with voice and pen in the cause of 
Canadian freedom deserve our grateful remembrance ; but we 
must not forget that some of them put themselves much in the 
wrong by violence and folly, and even, in one or two cases, were 
so far misled by fanaticism or personal ambition as to stain their 
hands with treason in the sacred name of patriotism. Their 
opponents, on the other hand, were not without weighty argu- 
ments in support of their position, and they included in their 
number many conscientious, patriotic, and able men whose mem- 
^ories stand far above any charge of greed or self-seeking. The 
oligarchy in Upper Canada, on account of the close relationship 
between its members and the jealous exclusiveness with which 
their circle was guarded, came to be known as the " Family 
Compact." This title was gradually extended to the like classes 
existing in each of the other provinces. In New Brunswick, 
indeed, it seemed hardly less appropriate than it was in the 
province by the Lakes. 

78. Political Strife in Lower Canada. — In Quebec the par- 
liamentary conflict, stilled on the approach of war, broke out again 
in 1 8 14, during the lull before the opening of the final campaign. 
The Assembly, exultant over the French Canadian triumph at 
Chateauguay, voted all the war credits that Sir George Prevost 
asked. Then their minds reverted to the old quar- TheAssembiy 
rel. For all that they had suffered under Sir James ag^n^^^^ 
Craig they laid the blame upon Chief Justice Sewell, ^''o^sed. 
who had been his chief adviser. They impeached the chief 
justice on a charge of having changed the rules of procedure in 
his court without legislative authority. Judge Monk, of Montreal, 
who had also made himself obnoxious to the Assembly, was 
impeached at the same time on charges of official corruption. 
The Assembly demanded that the governor should suspend these 
men from office. This the governor naturally refused to do, unless 
the Legislative Council should concur in the impeachment. The 
Legislative Council would have nothing to do with the impeachment. 



262 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Secure in such support, Judge Monk paid no attention to the 
wrath of the Assembly. Chief Justice Sewell, however, went to 
Chief Justice England, desiring that the charges preferred against 
gests^Confe'd- him should be looked into ; but his accusers failed to 
eration. appear. Sewell was warmly received in England, and 

he made his visit memorable. He laid before the colonial sec- 
retary, as a remedy for existing grievances and a safeguard against 
future perils, a scheme for the Federal Union of the Colonies of 
British North America. Thus, in 1814, the germs of the great 
idea of Confederation began to stir. The proposal awakened 
some interest at court ; but the time was not yet ripe by half a 
century. Events, however, and chief among them the war just 
ending, were slowly but surely paving the way for the consumma- 
tion of Se well's splendid dream. 

The quarrel between Assembly and Executive in Quebec was so 
much the more bitter because the Executive was almost exclusively 
Disputes over English. The EngUsh element in Lower Canada was 
the Civil List. j^Qj. Qj^jy ^ small minority of the population, but it was 
so foolish as to assume an air of superiority over its fellow-citizens. 
Members of this minority held almost all the offices. Having 
made good their grasp on power, they clung to it stubbornly, and 
professed to regard their fellow-subjects of French birth as an 
inferior race. The race dispute, however, was not a vital one, for 
we find the English members of the Assembly siding vigorously 
with their French colleagues in opposition to the governor and 
Council. It will be remembered that in 1809 the Assembly had 
offered to pay the expenses of the Civil List, — that is, the salaries 
of the officials, — and that the Council had indignantly rejected 
the offer, as a scheme to make them dependent on the Assembly. 
Now the governor was ordered by the home government to 
accept this offer (1816). The Assembly paid the bill, which had 
by this time much increased ; but refused to make permanent 
provision for it. The members declared that they would vote the 
required amount each year, and would retain the right of examin- 
ing the items of the List. This caused no collision, however, till 



PAPINEA U. 263 

181 9, when it was found that the List had increased from p^6o,ooo 
to ;^76,ooo. The Assembly protested, examined the items, and 
made some reductions before passing the Appropriation Bill. 
The bill thus amended was rejected by the Legislative Council ; 
and thus affairs once more came to a dead-lock. In the following 
year the old King, George III, died, and George IV came to the 
throne. New assemblies were elected in all the provinces, and to 
Quebec, as governor-general, came the Earl of Dalhousie, who 
had been serving as lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia. 

The speaker of the new Assembly was a brilliant French Cana- 
dian orator, soon to win a wide but unfortunate fame. This was 

Louis Papineau, the hero of the French Canadian de- „ . 

^ ' ... Papmeau. 

mocracy. In spite of quarrels and jealousies, Papineau 

could say in his opening speech of welcome to the new governor 

— " On the day on which Canada came under the dominion of 

Great Britain, the reign of law succeeded that of violence. From 

that day its treasures were freely spent, its navy and its army were 

mustered to afford her an invincible protection. From that day 

the better part of British laws became hers, while her religion, her 

property, and the laws by which they are preserved, remained 

unaltered." But this loyal temper was soon to change. Lord 

Dalhousie forced on a conflict. He demanded that the Assembly 

should provide for the Civil List by a permanent appropriation. 

When the Assembly refused, he himself appropriated the funds 

in the treasury, and paid the Civil List expenses. It will be 

remembered that the province had three sources of revenue, — 

(i) that derived from the Permanent Revenue Act of 1774, in 

the form of a tax imposed by the Crown on spirits and molasses \ 

(2) that derived from the leases of mines and sales of land, called 

the " Casual and Territorial Revenue " ; and (3) that derived from 

the customs duties imposed by the Assembly on goods coming 

into the province. Of all these revenues the Assembly claimed 

control ; but the first two were where the governor and Council 

could lay hands on them. When the governor drew these funds 

and used them to pay the expenses of government, the Assembly 



264 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

denounced his act as a breach of the constitution. To make 
matters worse, a noisy section of the Enghsh inhabitants began to 
argue for the abohtion of French laws and the banishment of the 
French language from the Legislature. These extremists claimed 
that unless Lower Canada ceased to be a French province she 
would soon cease to be an English possession. 

A scheme for a union of Upper and Lower Canada was now 

proposed by the British government (1822) ; but it provided for 

the use of no language but English in the parliamen- 

Schemefor ° ° ^ ^ 

reuniting the tary reports, and for the abolition of French from the 
Canadas. 

debates after fifteen years. The French protested so 

vehemently that the plan was dropped. But the Imperial Parha- 
ment, still arrogating to itself the right to tax the colonies, passed 
the Canada Trade Act, for raising a revenue and regulating com- 
merce. More and more bitter then grew the disputes in Lower 
Canada between Assembly and Legislative Council. The Assembly 
amended the Council's bills ; the Council threw out the amended 
bills ; the governor went on appropriating the permanent revenues 
to pay the Civil List. At length the position of the Council 
received a severe blow in the failure of the receiver-general, 
Sir John Caldwell. He had been appointed by the governor ; 
and no security had been exacted of him that he should prove 
faithful to his trust. The Crown, not having taken security, was 
thus morally responsible to the province. Caldwell could not 
account for some ;^9 6,000 of the funds of the province, which 
had passed into his hands. In spite of this notorious defalca- 
tion, he retained his seat in the Executive ; and the people 
found a new and potent weapon to their hand. As the public 
wrath boiled higher and higher. Lord Dalhousie was discreet 
enough to go away on leave of absence, and his place was tem- 
porarily filled by a more politic leader, Sir Francis Burton. He 
at once acknowledged the claim of the Assembly to control the 
Permanent Revenue ; and the indignation died down. On Dal- 
housie's return, however, the storm blew up again with increasing 
menace. That obstinate nobleman flouted all the claims of the 



THE CANADA COMMITTEE. 26$ 

Assembly, and displayed active hostility toward its leaders, who 
were Papineau for the French section, and Doctor Wolfred Nelson 
for the smaller but not less dissatisfied EngUsh section. The next 
step in the struggle was reached in 1827, when, after a general 
election, the governor-general refused to accept Papineau as 
speaker of the new House. Then the province hummed with 
excitement, and all legislation came to an end. The people 
gathered in angry knots. Mass meetings were held in the cities ; 
and huge petitions, stating grievances and asking for the recall 
of the governor-general, were posted in haste to England. 

As Upper Canada was at the same time besieging the home 
government with like petitions, the state of affairs attracted anxious 
attention in England. Parliament appointed a Canada xhe Canada 
Committee to examine the points at issue. The report Committee, 
of this committee (1828) was hailed in Lower Canada with grate- 
ful rejoicing. It urged that the Crown duties (of the act of 1774) 
should be put under the control of the Assembly on condition that 
permanent provision should be made for the payment of the Crown 
officials ; — that the judges should give up their seats in the Legis- 
lative Council ; — that bishops should not be allowed to interfere 
in matters of government ; — that receivers-general should give 
security; — that accounts should be examined by the Assembly's 
auditors ; — and that the Executive and Legislative Councils should 
be enlarged and made more independent by the addition of mem- 
bers representing different classes and interests, and not holding 
government offices. These recommendations apphed to both 
Upper and Lower Canada ; and in regard to the latter province, 
it was particularly urged that the French Canadian majority should 
have a fair representation. The unpopular Dalhousie was recalled. 
The new governor-general. Sir James Kempt, recognized Papineau 
as speaker of the Assembly ; and once more the excitement died 
away. 

The management of Great Britain's colonial affairs was in the 
hands of the Colonial Office, presided over by the colonial secre- 
tary. From the fact that the colonial secretary had his official 



266 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

headquarters in Downing Street, the name of that old London 

street came to be accepted in the colonies as synonymous with 

the Colonial Office. All through the struggles whose 

street sym- course we are now observing, the Colonial Office was 
pathizes ° 

with the somewhat inclined to favour the popular party in 

Reformers. , , . ir i sr j 

Canada, which called itself the Reform party. This 

was due to the fact that, whether British Whig or British Tory ruled 
at Westminster and filled the great office of colonial secretary, the 
under-secretary was a permanent official. This under-secretary, 
for a long term of years, was Mr. Stephens, who combined a vast 
knowledge of colonial aifairs with very broad views on the subject 
of colonial self-government. His attitude was much resented by 
the official party in Canada, — or, as their opponents called them, 
the Family Compact Tories. 

The Colonial Office sought to carry out the recommendations 
of the Canada Committee ; and Sir James Kempt at once insti- 
tuted a number of important reforms in Lower Canada. He also 
called prominent French Canadians to seats in the Executive. 
But, acting on his instructions from Downing Street, he reserved 
to the Crown the control of the Casual and Territorial Revenues. 
Over this reservation the strife soon broke out afresh, for the 
demands of the Assembly grew with each success. By 1830, when 
Kempt was succeeded by Lord Aylmer, the Assembly was once 
more as clamorous as ever. Lord Aylmer strove to conciliate 
them, but they would accept nothing less than the full surrender 
of the disputed revenue ; and this the Crown would not yield. 
The Assembly further began to demand that the Legislative Council 
should be made elective. And now, seeing that the French were 
aiming to get full control of all departments of the government, 
most of the British members of the Assembly, alarmed for the 
safety of their institutions, went over to the official party. Dur- 
ing the next three years the fires of party hate waxed hotter and 
hotter. The Assembly refused to vote supplies. The Casual and. 
Territorial Revenue was insufficient for the expenses of the Civil 
List; and the salaries of officials were left unpaid. Practical 



THE NINETY-FOUR RESOLUTIONS. 267 

legislation ceased ; and the Assembly, having fallen a prey to 
fanaticism and the eloquence of an ambitious visionary, spent 
its time in passing votes of censure on the government. 

There can be no doubt that Papineau was now being carried 
off his feet by the adoring flattery of his countrymen. In inflam- 
ing their hearts he inflamed himself ; and he began to papineau 
dream of a French Canadian republic, to the head s^^srash. 
of which he himself would, of course, be raised by an enthusi- 
astic and grateful people. He was doubtless in love with the 
example of George Washington, but the great American's sagacity 
was something which Papineau, for all his genius, could by no 
means emulate. He forgot his ancient professions of loyalty, his 
eloquent admiration for British institutions. He so far forgot his 
obligations as a constitutional legislator under oath, that he spoke 
open treason from the chair of the House. He denounced mon- 
archy, thundered in praise of republicanism, reviled the British 
as tyrannous usurpers, and held up the United States as an exam- 
ple for his countrymen to follow. It was not strange that the 
British should retort with the epithets "rebel" and "traitor," — 
which Papineau, blinded by vanity and ambition, was soon to make 
only too apt. 

At length the Assembly drew up a statement of its grievances, 
in what are known to history as the Ninety-four Resolutions. 
These famous resolutions were passed in the House 

. ^ The Ninety- 

with most violent harangues, and then forwarded to four Resoiu- 

° tions of 

England as an address to King and Parliament. They Lower 

, . , _, , ^ T , rr-ii • Canada. 

spoke for the French Canadians only. They reiter- 
ated every charge of tyranny, fraud, and corruption against the 
official party in the province ; demanded absolute control of all 
the lands and revenues, and a surrender of all authority to the 
PVench Canadian population. These demands were coupled with 
an implied threat of rebellion in case of refusal. In reply the 
British party in Lower Canada passed another address to the 
throne, stating their side of the story. The home government, 
quietly ignoring Papineau's threats, adopted a policy of concilia- 



268 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

tion. Lord Gosford was sent to Canada as governor-general, 
and as chairman of a Commission of Inquiry (1835). While 
this commission was at work, the popular excitement went on 
growing, fed by the knowledge that Lord Gosford's instructions 
positively forbade him to grant an elective Upper House or an 
Executive responsible to the people. The train was now well laid 
for an explosion, and the spark to light it was near at hand. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

SECTIONS : — 79, Political Strife in Upper Canada. 80, the 
Struggles in Nova Scotia. 81, Political Strife and Other 
Matters in New Brunswick, 82, Affairs in Cape Breton^ 
Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. 

79. Political Strife in Upper Canada. — In Upper Canada, 
meanwhile, there had been almost ceaseless wrangling, kindred to 
that in the French province, though somewhat less The excuses 
bitter. All power was in the hands of the strictest ^IctfoTtheiT 
form of Family Compact. This small oligarchy con- toward W 
trolled not only all the government offices, but the p^^p^^- 
real estate and nearly all the business of the province. By 
the amount of patronage at their disposal they were able to 
get their followers elected to the Assembly, and so, for a long 
time, to keep that troublesome body subservient. They kept the 
press muzzled, they repelled petitions or statements of popular 
grievances, they frowned down public political meetings, they dis- 
couraged the education of the lower classes, — and all because 
they had before their eyes the dread of '76. The tendency of 
these things, they said, was toward republicanism. Their fixed 
purpose was to keep the republican spirit out of this province 
which had grown from loyalist seed. Doubtless selfishness and 
arrogance, in many cases, had much to do with their attitude. 
But there was a good deal to urge in excuse. In the first place, 
the world was at that time only beginning to acknowledge the 
claims of popular liberty, and the views held by the Canadian 
oligarchy were but little behind the age. In the next place, the 

269 



270 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



ofificial party was made up of loyalists or the sons of loyalists. 
Having suffered and bled for the Crown, they were rigid to up- 
hold the prerogatives of the Crown; and not unnaturally they 
thought that they themselves were best entitled to exercise the 
prerogatives of the Crown, as well as to reap the rich rewards of 
that exercise. Their strongest excuse, however, was to be found 
in the fact that the liberal land grants of Upper Canada had 
attracted a large number of American immigrants into the prov- 
ince. These immigrants had brought with them republican prin- 
ciples, a fondness for noisy agitation, and an active sentiment for 
union with the States. They had formed the chief danger of 
Canada during the fiery trial of 1812-1814; and after the war 
was over they came in growing numbers. To the men whose 
devotion, whose treasure, and whose blood had saved Canada, that 
kind of government seemed the right kind which best kept the 
disloyal and the alien out of power. They must not be blamed 
too severely if they imagined that they alone were capable of 
governing their country aright. 

Little by little dissatisfaction gathered strength. Men remem- 
bered that they were British subjects. They saw their fellow-sub- 
jects in Great Britain enjoying free responsible government. And 
soon they began to assail the outworks of the official party. Some 
of the men who thus put themselves forward as champions of equal 
rights and representative government, were themselves of loyalist 
The Clergy stock, and in no way inferior to the Compact in intellect 
Reserves. ^^^ culture. They formed the solid core of the Reform- 
ers, and strove to hold in check the more flighty and fanatical ad- 
herents of the party. Among the grievances which early began to 
vex the people was that of the Clergy Reserves. In both provinces 
vast tracts of land had been set apart for the support, as the Act 
said, of " the Protestant religion in Canada." To Lower Canada 
this was distasteful, being taken as an unjust discrimination against 
the Roman Catholic Church ; but other questions overshadowed it. 
In Upper Canada the complaint it raised was a very different one.' 
In the first place, it was considered excessive, amounting as it did 



THE CASE OF GO URL AY. 



271 



in that province to two and a half miUions of acres. In the second 
place, the management of the lands was in the hands of the 
Family Compact, who chose to interpret the words " Protestant 
religion " as referring solely to the Church of England, with some 
possible exception in favour of the Church of Scotland. This 
interpretation excited the reasonable anger of Methodists and 
Baptists. In the third place, the Reserves did not he in one block, 
but were made up of every seventh lot in the surveyed townships. 
These lots remained unimproved while the land about them was 
cleared and tilled. The people objected to such wild spaces in 
the midst of their cultivated settlements. The differences thus 
arising were not settled till toward the close of the whole con- 
stitutional struggle ; and as late as 1836 the control of the Clergy 
Reserves enabled the Council to make an established church in 
Upper Canada, by the endowment of forty-four rectories. 

The strife between Reformer and Official was begun by one 
Robert Gourlay, a lively and erratic Scotchman who came to 
CaJnada in 181 7 and began work as a land-agent. The state of 
affairs in Upper Canada at once aroused his wrath. To every 
township he sent a hst of thirty-one questions, which 

. . ^ ^ ^ , . The casc of 

went deep into local abuses. The stin? was in the Robert Gour- 

. lay. 

last question, which inquired — " What, in your opin- 
ion, retards the improvement of your township in particular, or 
the province in general, and what would most contribute to the 
same? " The questions brought pubhc dissatisfaction to a crisis. 
Meetings were held to discuss them, and Gourlay's advice to the 
people was that they should complain to the Colonial Office. The 
Family Compact took alarm. They passed an act in the Legis- 
lature which strikes us now as tyrannous beyond belief, — an act 
forbidding all conventions. It is hard to realize that only three- 
quarters of a century ago such an act could be passed in Canada, 
and Canadians endure it. Then the Compact determined to expel 
this troublesome Gourlay for his unpleasant habit of asking ques- 
tions. He was arrested, tried for libel at Kingston, and acquitted. 
He was arrested again and tried at Brockville, with the same result. 



2/2 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

He was arrested yet again, this time on a charge of sedition, thrown 
into prison, and, in defiance of every principle of British justice, 
kept there seven months without trial. At length (1819) he was 
tried, and this time in Niagara, where the people were all sup- 
porters of the Compact. The unhappy Scotchman, broken down 
in mind and body by his unjust imprisonment, was brought before 
a partial judge and a prejudiced jury. The trial was a mockery of 
justice, and Gourlay, declared guilty of sedition, was driven out of 
Upper Canada. But his fate opened men's eyes ; and from that 
day the power of the Compact was doomed. The agitation for 
•Reform never afterwards ceased till the fulness of its triumph in 
complete Responsible Government. 

Among the leaders of the official party the two strongest per- 

, ^ sonalities were those of a Loyalist lawyer and a Scotch 
Two leaders ^ •' 

of the Com- Episcopalian divine. John Beverley Robinson, made 

attorney-general of the province at the age of twenty- 
one, and afterwards chief justice and a baronet, was a typical Tory 
of the best type. He was fearless, whether before the guns of a 
hostile army or the clamours of an angry mob. He was capable, 
unyielding, dogmatic, arrogant, honest, and convinced of the divine 
right of the Compact to rule the province. Doctor John Strachan, 
afterwards first Bishop of Toronto, was made a member of the 
Executive Council in 181 5, when he was rector of York. He was 
not only an uncompromising member of the Compact, hating 
democratic principles as the worst form of heresy, but he was also 
a subtle and skilled politician. His was the guiding intellect of the 
official party. His hand ma'de the moves which so often seemed 
to checkmate the Reformers. 

So much slower was the growth of the popular party in Upper 
William Lyon than in Lower Canada, that it was not till 1824 that 
ackenzie. ^^ Assembly showed a reform majority and came 
into conflict with the governor and Council. In this year William 
Lyon Mackenzie, a fiery young Scotchman who had come to 
Canada four years before, started a paper called the Colonial 
Advocate in the interests of the reform movement. The new 



ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT. 273 

journal published scathing criticisms of the Compact, and threw 
a dangerous Hght upon certain grave abuses. The hostility of 
the governor and both Councils was at once turned upon the dar- 
ing journalist. The Colonial Advocate proved unprofitable, and 
before it was two years old Mackenzie was in trouble. But just 
at this juncture the folly of the officials gave it a new lease of life 
(1826). A gang of young men, sons of the Compact, broke into 
Mackenzie's office, destroyed the presses, and emptied the types 
into the lake. The rowdies, however, were speedily brought to 
trial, and condemned to pay Mackenzie about three thousand 
dollars damages, — a sum which greatly eased the needy editor. 

Other things happened to stir up the people's indignation. 
Members of the opposition in the Assembly were spied upon and 
persecuted. A British half-pay officer, Captain Matthews, for 
having, in an after-dinner mood, called upon some strolling Ameri- 
can players to give two or three American national Arbitrary 
airs, was reported to the home government for dis- |overnor'and 
loyalty, and lost his pension. A certain Judge Willis, ^^ecutive. 
sent out from England, incurred the wrath of the Compact by his 
strictures upon their modes of administering justice, and was re- 
moved from his position. Then a grasping inn-keeper named 
Forsyth, at Niagara Falls, built a high fence along the front of 
his place, to shut out the view and force visitors to pass through 
his grounds if they wished to see the great cataract. Governor 
Maitland ordered him to take away the obstruction, but Forsyth 
refused. Thus far, Forsyth was in the wrong. But the arbitrary 
governor made haste to put himself in the wrong, — and at once 
the avaricious Boniface appeared a victim of Tory persecution. A 
squad of soldiers appeared, tore down the fence, destroyed a house 
of Forsyth's which stood on his own land, and threw the wreck 
into the Falls. The Assembly undertook to investigate the outrage. 
Certain government officials were summoned before the House to 
give evidence ; but on Maitland's rash advice they refused to obey 
the summons. The Assembly had them arrested and put in 
prison ; whereupon the governor dissolved the House. This led 



274 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

to such a storm of anger that Maitland was promptly recalled by 
the Colonial Office (1828). He was succeeded by Sir John Col- 
borne. But the change brought no more temperate counsels, no 
cessation of the conflict. Editors of reform journals fiercely 
criticised the officials, and were answered by fines and imprison- 
ment. Solicitor-General Boulton, one of the leading members of 
the Compact, refused to give evidence when summoned to do so 
by a committee of the House. For this flagrant disobedience he 
was called before the bar of the House, and sternly reprimanded 
by the speaker, Mr. Marshall Bidwell. 

But now the party of the Reformers began to split into two 

sections. Men of dignity, sagacity, and loyalty, like Speaker 

Bidwell, Robert Baldwin, and the great Methodist 

A split in the . ' ' ° 

Reform Loyalist, Egerton Ryerson, would not tolerate the ex- 

tremes and violence of the Mackenzie faction. This 
split, in 1830, enabled the Compact to gain a majority in the 
Assembly. The occasion was seized to pass what was known as 
the " Everlasting Salaries Bill." This made a permanent grant 
for the salaries of judges and officials, thus rendering them still 
further independent of the Assembly. The bill was attacked 
with great force by Mackenzie, who had been elected member for 
York ; and the angry majority, since they could not beat him in 
argument, expelled him. Again and again he was returned by 
his enthusiastic constituents, only to be as promptly turned out 
for disagreeing with the majority. He then went to England to 
lay his complaints before the Throne ; and the colonial secretary 
declared his expulsion illegal. Still the Assembly, blindly obsti- 
nate, and scorning even the authority for which the Compact pro- 
fessed such veneration, refused to admit him. He became then 
a sort of popular idol, almost as frantically adored by certain 
classes as Papineau in the sister province ; and in 1834, when 
York was incorporated and took again its old-time name of 
Toronto, he was elected first mayor of the city. In this year 
the breach between the moderate Reformers and the extremists 
grew wider. The cause of this was a letter received by Mackenzie 



REFORMERS FAVOURED BY COLONIAL OFFICE. 275 

from Hume, the English radical, in which he said that the course 
of events in Canada must " terminate in independence and free- 
dom from the baneful domination of the mother country." As 
these sentiments were not repudiated by Mackenzie, Mackenzie 
was angrily repudiated by Ryerson and other loyal Reformers. 
In spite of this split, however, the Compact was beaten in the 
next election, and the Reformers had a majority in the new House. 
Bidwell was once more made speaker, and Mackenzie was made 
chairman of a "Special Committee on Grievances" (1835). The 
report of this committee opened the eyes of the Colonial Office 
to the state of affairs in the province, and Sir John Colborne was 
recalled. His last act was a deliberate defiance of the people. 
He established and endowed, from the Clergy Reserves, the forty- 
four rectories already referred to. The number was intended to 
be fifty-six, but before all the patents were made out the matter 
came to the ears of the Assembly, and the speaker put a stop to 
it at that point. 

The Colonial Office was now sincerely bent upon limiting the 
tyranny of the Compact, securing the rights of the people, and 
conciliating the Reformers, as far as all these things xhe colonial 
could be done without weakening the authority of theRe-^^"^"^^ 
the Crown. The point on which the home gov- *°"°^''^- 
ernment was most unwilling to yield was that of making the 
Executive responsible to the people. It was still held in England 
that colonists were dependents, and therefore in a sense inferior 
to the British voter at home. The British Executive was, of 
course, responsible to the British people ; but to give colonial 
voters a like control of their own Executive, would, it was thought, 
do away with a righteous distinction between colonists and full 
citizens. It was further held that with complete self-govern- 
ment the colonists would grow too independent, and by-and-by 
throw off their allegiance after the example of their southern kin. 
The home government was hampered, therefore. Its good-will 
toward the colonies was sincere ; but it did not yet understand 
the situation. Upper Canada now needed a governor of 



276 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

special tact and prudence, who would be able to exact concessions 
from both the opposing parties. Instead of such a one, Downing 
Street sent out the self-confident and blundering Sir Francis 
Bond Head. 

The new governor at once called three prominent Reformers 
to the Executive. At the same time, however, he assured them 
Sir Francis that they were in no way responsible to the people, but 
Bond Head. ^^ j^-^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ j^^ ^-^ ^^^ consider it neces- 
sary to ask their advice except when he should chance to feel that 
he needed it. Upon receiving this statement of extreme absolu- 
tism the three Reformers resigned their seats, — and the indignant 
Sir Francis at once allied himself with the Compact. Anew Coun- 
cil was formed, exclusively Tory. The Assembly passed an address 
censuring Sir Francis ; and for the first time in Upper Canada 
happened that which in Lower Canada had become quite the 
custom, — the Assembly refused to vote supplies. The Reformers 
of the two provinces, meanwhile, had been drawing together for 
sympathy, and now from Papineau came a letter to Speaker 
Bidwell, urging that the Reformers of all the British North 
American provinces should join in the fight for self-government. 
Sir Francis cried out that this was republicanism, and forthwith 
dissolved the House. A new election was held, the governor him- 
self taking the stump and haranguing as a violent partisan. He 
declared that the fight was for monarchy and British connection 
— and this cry, falling on loyalist ears, carried the day. Men 
who hated the tyranny of the Compact bitterly enough were never- 
theless willing to endure it rather than side with disloyalty and 
treason. The new House showed a majority in support of the 
Compact ; and Mackenzie, Bidwell, Rolph, and other leading 
Reformers were left out. Enraged at this, and puffed up by the 
flattery of his followers, the excitable Mackenzie stretched out both 
hands to Papineau and planned open rebellion. 

80. The Struggle in Nova Scotia. — In Nova Scotia and New . 
Brunswick the struggle for representative institutions went on more 
temperately, and came to a climax more gradually, than in the 



DEPRESSION IN NOVA SCOTIA. 277 

Upper Provinces. The questions at issue between Official and 
Reformer were more simple. They were not complicated by 
questions of race, and the line of division between the Depression in 
different classes of society was not drawn with such NovaScotia. 
arrogance. In Nova Scotia the close of the war brought a depart- 
ure of ships, a diminution of troops, and therefore a speedy col- 
lapse of trade. This was felt most of all in Halifax. The chief 
naval station was removed from Halifax to Bermuda. The popu- 
lation shrank, and hundreds of workmen were fed by the Poor 
Man's Society. For five years the people were fully occupied and 
patriotically united in the effort to improve their province. Men's 
thoughts were kept away from politics. What rather interested 
the people were such things as letters in the newspapers on the 
state of provincial agriculture ; and a series of such letters by an 
anonymous "Agricola " led to the estabhshment of an Agricultural 
Society, with Lord Dalhousie as president and the public-spirited 
unknown^ as secretary. Education, too, was a question of gen- 
eral interest. A system of parish schools was begun; and in 1821 
Dalhousie College was founded, chiefly with the moneys of the 
Castine Fund already referred to. Lord Dalhousie, doomed later 
to win himself such an ill renown in Lower Canada, was fairly 
popular in Nova Scotia. The first symptoms of the approaching 
struggle made themselves felt, however, during his administration. 
The Assembly advanced certain charges against the collector of 
customs, who was a member of the Executive Council. At such 
presumption Lord Dalhousie grew righteously indignant. 

In spite of the fact that the Family Compact in Nova Scotia 
formed an irresponsible oligarchy, holding all offices, powers, and 
privileges in their grasp, the people were slow to move strong posi- 
against their rulers. The officials, indeed, were strongly compac\^^n 
entrenched. The Executive Council and the Legis- NovaScotia. 
lative Council formed one body ; and they sat with closed doors. 



i"Agricola" revealed himself as a Scotchman named John Young. Reen- 
tered the Assembly, and became prominent in the politics of Nova Scotia. 



278 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

careless of public opinion, careless of the Assembly itself. 
Grievances there were ; but the governor, Sir James Kempt 
(1820-1828), was devoted to the development of the province. 
He improved the roads. He opened up communications. In 
1827, under his auspices, the Shubenacadie Canal was begun, 
to connect Halifax harbour with the head waters of the Bay of 
Fundy, — a work which was expected to develop the internal 
growth of the province, as well as feed the commerce of Halifax. 
The people needed some burning question, or else a powerful 
leader, to make them attack the strong supremacy of the Compact. 
In 1830 came up a question of taxation, and it seemed as if 
the fight was fairly begun. The Assembly had some years before 

put a duty of one shilling and fourpence per gallon 
the brandy on brandy ; and now they discovered that the duty 

actually collected was only one shilling per gallon. 
They protested, and called for the exaction of the full tax. The 
Council refused to agree, so high a tax being unpopular with their 
friends, who seem to have been the chief consumers of the article 
in question. As neither body would yield, there were no collec- 
tions for a year; — and the province lost nearly ;^25,ooo, while 
Halifax enjoyed the blessing of cheap brandy. Then came a 
general election, bringing in a new Assembly which proved even 
more unyielding than its predecessor ; and at last the Council 
with much grumbling agreed to the tax. 

Trouble next arose on the management of affairs in Halifax, 
which, not being incorporated, was governed by magistrates in 
Howe's libel t^e interest of the Compact. There were crying 
^^^^' abuses, corrupt mismanagement, and neglect of the 

public needs. And now came forward as champion of the popu- 
lar cause one of the most illustrious of the sons of Nova Scotia. 
Joseph Howe, born of loyalist parents, near Halifax, in 1804, 
was at this time editor of a Halifax newspaper called the Nova- 
scotian. In the columns of his journal (1835) ^" anonymous, 
correspondent denounced the magistrates, and charged them 
with defrauding the city to the amount of ;^40oo a year. The 



JOSEPH HOWE. 279 

immediate result of this bold step was that Howe found himself 
attacked with the favourite weapon of the Compact, namely, an 
action for criminal libel. Confident in his eloquence and in his 
case, Howe made his own defence, and spoke before the jury for 
six hours. His prosecutor was one of the most eloquent of his 
fellow-countrymen, the Hon. S. G. W. Archibald, then attorney- 
general of the province. But in spite of the fact that the judge 
charged flatly against him, Howe was acquitted ; and the enthusi- 
astic citizens kept holiday in honour of his triumph. 

Howe became the popular idol, as Papineau was in Lower 
Canada, as Mackenzie was with a noisy section in Upper Canada. 
But the contrast was great between Howe and these other tribunes 
of the people. The Nova Scotian reformer, while impetuous, 
fearlessj and uncompromising, was unimpeachably loyal. He 
wanted nothing but what was to be got by constitutional means. 
" Red fool fury " was hateful to him, and ridiculous. Though his 
eloquence and his magnetism could sway an audience as the wind 
sways a field of wheat, he had a fund of humour that held him 
worlds apart from the vainglorious rashness of Mackenzie and 
Papineau. He did not think that, because the people cheered 
him, he could therefore defy the old lion of England and set up 
a little republic between Cape Sable and Cape North. He led 
the people, but he was not misled by them. 

When Howe was elected to the Assembly, he set his hand at 

once to reform. He had able assistants in Young, Huntington, 

and Lawrence O'Connor Doyle. His first step was 

■^ ^ Howe's 

an attack on the Council for sitting with closed doors, Twelve Reso- 

•C • 1 ■ ■ rr ■ r^y ■ r lutiOnS. 

as it its business were a private affair. This vote of 
censure from the Assembly was scornfully ignored by the Council ; 
whereupon the Assembly passed a series of Twelve Resolutions, 
condemning both the constitution and procedure of the Council, 
and accusing that body of setting its own interests before the 
public good. This called forth an uproar, which Howe quieted 
by shrewdly rescinding the resolutions, saying that they had done 
their work in opening the eyes of the pubHc. The gist of them^ 



28o A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

however, was embodied in a petition to the Throne, praying for 
redress of grievances. The result was a victory, but by no 
means a complete one. The accession of Queen Victoria (1837) 
brought on general elections everywhere, and with the gathering 
of the new Assembly at Halifax came new instructions to the 
governor from Westminster. The doors of the council room 
were opened to the public, the Legislative and Executive councils 
were separated, the chief justice and the bishop were forbidden 
to sit in either council, the control of the revenues (except the 
Casual and Territorial) was put in the hands of the Assembly, 
and the Executive was made to include members of both Houses. 
But these concessions were in great part made useless by the 
manner in which they were carried out. The governor of Nova 
Scotia at this time was the veteran general Sir Colin Campbell, 
respected for his sincerity by friend and foe alike, but obstinately 
opposed to any growth of popular power. He appointed, indeed, 
members of the Assembly to seats in the Executive Council ; but 
the members so appointed were all adherents of the Compact. 
The Assembly, now controlling the customs revenues, refused to 
make permanent provision for the Civil List, preferring to pass an 
appropriation bill each year, and declaring that the salaries then 
paid were much too high for a province in such needy circum- 
stances. Delegations were sent to London by both parties, to 
carry their quarrel and argue their case before the home govern- 
ment. But this time the Reformers gained little. Their urgent 
demand for an elective upper house, and for an executive 
responsible to the people, was not heard kindly in Downing 
Street. And for a time such principles became unpopular in 
Nova Scotia itself. The insane rebellions in Upper and Lower 
Canada, though sternly discountenanced by Howe and his fol- 
lowers, were used by the Official party as an excuse for taunting 
the Reformers with repubhcanism and treason. They called 
forth, however, a vigorous loyalty all through the Maritime 
Provinces, a loyalty in which Reformer and Official strove to 
outdo each other; and then came a lull in the noise of party 



SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS. 28 1 

Strife. Ten years more of agitation and dispute were yet to be 
endured before the final triumph of Responsible Government. 

81. Political Strife, and Other Matters in New Brunswick. — 
In New Brunswick, as we have already seen, the quarrel between 
Assembly and Executive began early. We noted, at sir Howard 
the close of the preceding century, the preliminary Ke'^Bruns- 
struggle for control of the revenues, and the conse- '^^'^^^ 
quent dead-lock. The same struggle, persistent rather than fierce, 
was renewed from time to time; till in 18 18 the governor, Mr. 
Tracey Smythe, indignantly dissolved the House. The record of 
quarrels and reconciliations in all the restless provinces grows 
most wearisome to tell or to consider. On the coming of Sir 
Howard Douglas as governor (1824) a more amiable spirit pre- 
vailed. Both parties united with the patriotic governor in efforts 
for the advancement of the province. The population was now 
something less than seventy-five thousand. It was so completely 
dependent upon the lumber interest and ship-building that agricul- 
ture was sadly behindhand. The governor, seeing that the lumber- 
trade was bound sooner or later to decay, sought to turn the 
attention of the people toward the sounder occupation of farming. 
To open up the province he ran new roads and strove for the im- 
provement of old ones. This was, in those days, a prime duty 
of colonial governors. Education, too, came in for his diligent 
care, and through his efforts was presently founded at Frederic- 
ton a college called, like the similar establishment in Nova Scotia, 
King's College, later to become the University of New Brunswick. 

In the year after Sir Howard's coming the province was visited 
by a disaster whose effects may even yet be traced in the vast 
charred tracts of the interior. This calamity was the xhe Mirami- 
great Miramichi fire. The summer of 1825 had '^^i^''^- 
been one of heat and drought over the northern half of the conti- 
nent. For months there was no rain. All through September 
the inhabitants of the New Brunswick towns and villages were 
kept uneasy by the threat of forest fires. The air about Frederic- 
ton was thick with smoke. At the close of the month a blaze 



282 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ran in through the fir thickets to the very outskirts of the town, 
and Government House was burned. In October the fire broke 
out in the vast forest region about the upper waters of the Nash- 
waak. The woods were hke so much tinder. Hurled forward by 
a great wind, the hurricane of flame swept out the whole heart of 
the province, from the waters of the Miriamichi to the shores of 
Bay Chaleur. The heaviest sufferers were the inhabitants of New- 
castle and Douglastown, on the northern bank of the Miramichi. 
All through the day of that memorable October 7th, the townsfolk 
had been weighed down by the sultry, poisoned air, and by a 
dread of coming woe. The cattle, warned by a like instinct, 
huddled together in frightened groups ; and wild animals, tamed 
by fear, crept out of the woods to seek refuge in the clearings. 
About sundown came the first huge breaths of a burning wind, 
and through the sudden darkness could be seen the red flashings 
and creepings of the fire along the western sky. Soon the wind 
grew to a wild gale, and up from the horizon's edge the flames 
leaped ominously. Then came an appalling roar, that bowed 
men's souls with terror ; the sky rained hot cinders and flaming 
branches ; and the heavens grew suddenly one sheet of flame. 
Through the horror men rushed madly to seek shelter in the 
streams, carrying their sick and helpless with them. Some 
pushed out in boats or scows, on rafts or single logs, into the 
wide and wind-lashed current of the Miramichi. Others crouched 
down in the water along shore, where they were crowded and 
trampled by the throng of frantic animals — wolves, bears, deer, 
horses, cattle, all in strange and shuddering confusion. Slfips 
were burned at their moorings before they could get clear. All 
the houses of the Miramichi settlements were wiped out of exist- 
ence in an hour, — Newcastle, at that time, being a prosperous 
little town of several hundred buildings. In the Miramichi region 
alone there died that night one hundred and sixty persons, some 
slain by the fire, some drowned by the waves in which they had. 
sought shelter. But scattered over the interior were lonely pio- 
neer families, solitary lumbermen, for many of whom there was 



REPEAL OF TIMBER DUTIES. 283 

no possible refuge from this ocean of flame that raged over nearly 
six thousand square miles. Those who escaped only did so by 
wallowing in the lakes and wider streams. The heat was so terrific 
that in shallow waters the fish were struck dead by thousands, 
and afterwards, washed up along the shores, infected the air. 
The intense flame in places licked all vegetable matter out of the 
soil, so that to this day there are wide tracts in the burnt region 
where nothing grows but stunted shrubbery. The loss to the 
province was estimated at about ;^228,ooo in goods and prop- 
erty, and in standing timber at something like ;^5 00,000. The 
total number of buildings burnt at Miramichi was five hundred 
and ninety-five ; of cattle and horses eight hundred and seventy- 
five. Subscriptions for the suff"erers were taken up in all the 
provinces, as well as in Great Britain and the United States ; and 
nearly ;^40,ooo were collected. At the same time that this great 
ruin was falling on the eastern part of the province, a fire broke 
out also in Fredericton, burning eighty-nine buildings ; while 
another at Oromocto village destroyed twenty buildings. 

Soon after this calamity the old quarrel between Maine and 
New Brunswick about the boundaries once more grew threat- 
ening. But for the time the danger was averted. Qj-eat Britain 
It will be referred to more fully at a later point in the Repeal the° 
narrative, when the whole question of the Disputed gaitic ^^ 
Territory comes up for settlement. The effect of ti^iber. 
suffering and peril was to draw classes more closely together and 
quiet the bitterness of party strife. In 1830 the province re- 
ceived a rude blow. The British West India trade was made 
free to the world, and American competition cut down the 
profits of New Brunswick's fish and lumber. The stroke was 
felt in Nova Scotia as well as in New Brunswick. Then came 
news which caused a panic, and almost stirred the very loyalists 
to rebeUion. Great Britain proposed to repeal the duties on 
Baltic timber. As the duties then stood, the lumber of the colo- 
nies was protected in the English market by a heavy duty on the 
product of foreign forests. The withdrawal of this protection 



284 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

rneant ruin to the trade on which New Brunswick had pinned all 
her faith. Angry and piteous were the petitions that went across 
to the home government. Fortunately Sir Howard Douglas, in 
so many ways the good genius of the province, was in England at 
the time reporting on the quarrel with Maine. He issued a strong 
address against the repeal of the duty, which carried such weight 
that the bill was killed in Parliament. In grateful enthusiasm 
New Brunswick presented Sir Howard with a service of plate; 
but the governor did not return to the post he had so adorned. 
In championing his province as he did he had brought a reverse 
upon the government which had appointed him, and he therefore 
felt bound to resign. His successor was General Sir Archibald 
Campbell, a stiff -necked old soldier, with high ideas of the royal, 
and his own, prerogative. It required no keen observer to guess 
that the pohtical calm of the last few years was doomed to a speedy 
termination. 

In the Assembly now arose a leader who was destined to do for 

his party in New Brunswick what Howe was doing in Nova Scotia. 

Lemuel Allan Wilmot, a lawyer of loyalist stock and 

L. A. Wilmot. 1. , , ;. 

commandmg eloquence, became a figure almost as 
conspicuous as that of Howe, though he lacked the magnetic 
and robust humour of the Nova Scotian statesman. In parlia- 
mentary tactics and in debate he was a master. The Reform 
party in the House soon began pressing its demands. Its first 
success was the separation of the Executive from the Legislative 
Council. This was done with the object of having members of 
the Lower as well as the Upper House on the Council board ; 
but the governor managed to make the concession vain by re- 
fusing to appoint any new members whatever to the Council, 
which thus remained in the hands of the Compact. The Re- 
formers then turned their attention to the Crown Land depart- 
ment, the mismanagement of which was one of their chief griev- 
ances. This department was managed by a chief commissioner, 
whose salary was extravagantly large. He used his position to 
favour the rich lumbermen and other members of the Compact, 



PARLIAMENTARY DISPUTES. 285 

and was indifferent to the censure of the Assembly. The revenues 
of his department were those Casual and Territorial Revenues of 
which we have heard so much. They were beyond the control 
of the Assembly, and were used to pay the expenses of the Civil 
List, thus making the public officials independent of the people 
whom they were supposed, by a polite fiction, to serve. The As- 
sembly asked for an account of the expenditure of this revenue : 
but Sir Archibald, who had small love for the Reformers and their 
doctrines, refused to give it. 

The answer of the Assembly to this rebuff was the despatch 
of delegates to London, to pray that the control of the dis- 
puted revenue should be given to the people's rep- 

resentatives. These delegates were well received : with the 

Executive, 
but their mission failed. On this failure the Assembly 

grew only the more determined ; while the abuses in the Crown 
Land department grew yearly the more shameless. Returning to 
the attack, the Assembly passed in 1836 a resolution calling for 
a detailed statement of the sales of government lands for the 
preceding year. The obstinate governor, ignoring his orders • 
from London, refused to give the House any such statement. 
Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Crane were sent to England with a new 
petition. To the King, the sagacious William IV, and to his colo- 
nial secretary, the claim of the Assembly to control all moneys 
seemed nothing more than reasonable. The petition was granted. 
The Assembly was allowed full charge of the disputed revenues ; 
and was required in return to make permanent provision for the 
salaries of governor and officials. The appointing of members of 
the Assembly to seats on the Executive was recommended. And 
the governor and Council were ordered to submit detailed ac- 
counts of the Crown Land department to the Assembly at every 
session. 

The victory was an overwhelming one for the Assembly ; but 
the governor strove to prevent the carrying out of these conces- 
sions. He sent the Hon. George F. Street, one of the most 
influential members of the Official party, to London, to plead 



286 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

against the change. Crane and Wilmot foiled Street's efforts. 
The implacable governor then resigned, rather than yield to the 
Sir John Reformers. He was succeeded by the hero of Stony 

?acifl7sthe Creek, Sir John Harvey (1837). The Civil List Bill 
strife. ^g^g passed ; and peace, under the judicious rule of 

Sir John Harvey, descended upon the pohtics of New Brunswick. 
The grateful Assembly had a full-length portrait painted of the 
colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, to hang over the speaker's 
chair. The intention of Glenelg, in procuring the passage of the 
Civil List Bill, was that its provisions should be extended to all 
the provinces. He wished it to form the basis of a new consti- 
tution, which should bring harmony out of the prevaihng chaos. 
But Upper Canada jealously protested against having her constitu- 
tion thus cut and dried for her by the New Brunswick Assembly ; 
and the plan was thrust aside. 

82. Affairs in Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and New- 
foundland. — The population of the little province of Cape Breton, 
meanwhile, was growing at a snail's pace. Till it 

Cape Breton. , . . 

ceased to be a provmce, it never quite rose to the 
dignity of political problems. The region about Sydney, and 
the French district of Arichat, long continued to hold the bulk 
of the population. Government was carried on by a governor 
and council, and Sydney was in great part peopled by officials. 
There was no clamour, as in the other provinces, for free 
representative institutions. Far from it. But the numerous 
officials, having much leisure to dispose of, managed to get up 
among themselves almost as much disturbance as the other 
provinces could boast. Attention was very early directed to 
the rich coal mines of the province, which soon, in the form 
of " royalties," began to yield a revenue to the government. 
The " royalty " was a certain fixed tax on every ton or chaldron 
taken from the mines. But a novel kind of thievery flourished. 
Where the seams of jetty mineral broke out on the seaward cliffs, 
ships were wont to come in and without fee or license do their 
own coal-mining. 



CAPE BRETON AND PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 287 

In 1807 the whole population of Cape Breton was Httle more than 

five thousand souls. The revenue was swallowed up in paying the 

salaries of too-abundant officials. The War of 181 2 produced but 

a mild ripple in the island. When its echoes had 

^ ' Cape Breton 

ceased, a difficulty arose over the coal-royalties. Cer- reunited to 

• , r \ 1 , , , , Nova Scotia, 

tain lessees refused to pay them, on the ground that, by 

its original constitution, no duties could be levied in the province. 
This plea was upheld in the courts of law ; and all processes of 
government were brought to a standstill. There was nothing to 
do but call an assembly, or reannex the island to Nova Scotia. 
General Ainslie, who had been governor since 181 6, resigned his 
post in 1820. In departing he spoke very bitterly of the people. 
In view of the fact that ever since the foundation of the prov- 
ince it had been a hot-bed of rancour, the home government 
decided not to call an assembly. In the teeth of indignant 
protests from the people, Cape Breton in 1820 was reunited 
to Nova Scotia; and two representatives, R. J. Uniacke and 
Lawrence Kavanagh, were elected to the Nova Scotian As- 
sembly. But though the union was an accomplished fact, the 
people strove against it. In 1823 a second petition was ad- 
dressed to London, praying for repeal of the union. This was 
peremptorily refused. Twenty years later the agitation was 
revived at Sydney, and resulted in a new petition to the home 
government. It was answered by Mr. Gladstone, then under- 
secretary of state, with a very decided refusal, which put an end 
to the question (1846). 

In the "Garden of the Gulf," after its change of name from 
St. John's to Prince Edward Island, no great political events took 
place. The immigration of Lord Selkirk's High- prince Ed- 
landers, in 1803, has been already mentioned. Amid ""^^rd island, 
their fertile farms, their genial climate, the people prospered 
quietly ; and the isolating waters kept them apart from the stir 
and tumult of the War of 181 2. Nor did the strife of parties 
greatly vex the peaceful island. The great constitutional ques- 
tions between Assembly and Executive were fought out slowly 



288 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

and somewhat mildly in the legislative halls of Charlottetown. 
One of the governors, Charles Douglas Smith, when in difficulties 
with the Assembly, took the simple plan of not calling that body 
together, and so pursued in peace his arbitrary course. But suc- 
ceeding governors were less autocratic ; and when the violent 
courses of Papineau and Mackenzie culminated in rebellion, the 
militia of Prince Edward Island promptly volunteered for service 
ill repressing it. 

In 1822 a harsh and sudden attempt of Governor Smith to 
collect the old arrears of the quit-rents caused much suffering and 
The land wide-spread indignation. The one evil, indeed, which 
question. i» the eyes of the islanders obscured all others, was 
the crying one of absentee proprietorship. This arose from the 
light way in which the lands of the island had been granted when 
it came into English hands. Most of the inhabitants held their 
farms as tenants of landlords who dwelt in England and knew 
nothing of circumstances in a young colony. After putting the 
best of their lives on improving a piece of wild land, these 
tenants were liable to be turned out for inability to pay arrears 
of rent. Many a man thus found his life's work wasted. The 
question was one that touched the people ceaselessly and 
deeply. But it was not to be settled till after three-quarters 
of a century of wrangling ; and its full discussion belongs to a 
later chapter. 

To Newfoundland the wars which opened the century and 

shook the thrones of Europe proved an unparalleled blessing. 

Her European rivals in the cod-fisheries were swept 

Great prog- ^ 

ress in New- from off her seas by the fleets of England, and for a 

foundland. ^ ° ' 

time she ruled the fish-markets of the world. The 
progress of the island advanced by mighty strides. Population 
flowed in, in spite of the old restrictions on settlement. In the 
years when the loyalists were flocking into Canada (i 783-1 785), 
the population of Newfoundland was about ten thousand. In the 
year 1800 the Royal Newfoundland regiment, stationed at St. 
John's, conspired to mutiny, plunder the town, and escape to the 



NE WFO UNDLAND. 289 

United States. The plot was discovered by Bishop O'Donnell, 
and crushed out with a firm hand. The regiment was sent to 
another station. In the year which saw the close of our War of 
Defence (1814) came seven thousand immigrants to the Ancient 
Colony, whose population now reached the very respectable figure 
of seventy thousand. These settlers were gathered most thickly 
on the peninsula of Avalon, about the secure harbours which mark 
that deeply indented coast on either side from St. John's. But 
all the inhabitants were seafarers, dwelling within reach of the 
salt spray and rich harvests of the tide. Far more exclusively 
than New Brunswick devoted herself to lumber, Newfoundland 
devoted herself to fish. Farming was all but unknown. In 1816, 
when the wars had ceased in Europe and America, and New- 
foundland could not longer monopohze the fisheries, the pros- 
perity of the island all at once collapsed, and sudden ruin fell. 
Then, and in the year following, St. John's was all but wiped 
out in three great conflagrations ; and the island became a scene 
of misery. But soon the price of fish went up, and prosperity 
came again. 

The merchants of St. John's, making great fortunes out of the 
fisheries* and desirous of keeping all the people in a state of 
dependence, diligently reported that there were no 

farm lands in the province. Neither climate nor soil, ative Assem- 
bly granted 
they said, was fit for husbandry. But in spite of them to Newfound- 
population went on growing, though all political life in 
this population was so successfully choked down that not till 1832 
did the island receive the first rudiments of representative govern- 
ment, in the form of a popular Assembly. The agitation for this 
benefit was begun in 1 821, but was successfully opposed for eleven 
years by the merchants of St. John's, whose great object was not 
only to prevent increase of population but to procure the removal 
of the inhabitants already occupying the island. Their one con- 
sideration was their pockets ; but for long they were able to blind 
the home government to the selfish greed of their policy. When 
the colony .did at length arrive at the dignity of a Legislature, 



290 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



Strife between Executive and Assembly soon began. But it had 
not the clear and consistent form which it took in the Canadas, 
Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Nor were the people of New- 
foundland destined to win a full measure of Responsible Gov- 
ernment till long after this goal had been reached by the sister 
provinces. 



CHAPTER XX. 

SECTIONS: — 83, the Rebellion in Lower Canada. 84, the 
Rebellion in Upper Canada. 85, Lord Durham and his 
Report. 86, the Canadas united. 87, Responsible Gov- 
ernment gained in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 

83. The Rebellion in Lower Canada. — And now we turn back 
to Lower Canada, which we left a caldron of popular discontent. 
The Royal Commission of Inquiry, which had been 

. , . , , / , . LordRus- 

appomted to investigate the troubles, made its report sell's firm 
to the British Parliament in February of 1837. The 
report showed that the Reformers of Lower Canada had put 
themselves in a position which the most liberal of their friends 
were bound to condemn. Lord John Russell brought in a bill 
which dealt firmly with the whole matter. As the Assembly had 
for five years refused to vote supphes, leaving the judges and 
other officials in distress, Lord Russell's bill authorized the gov- 
ernor-general to take ;^i42,ooo out of the provincial treasury 
and pay all the arrears of the Civil List. He was warned that 
this step would cause rebellion. He answered that justice should 
be done at whatever cost. The people had got all they asked for, 
except an elective Upper House and a responsible Executive. 
These were refused to every other colony as well. The refusal 
could hardly be held to justify rebellion. 

By the banks of the St. Lawrence, however, Lord Russell's bill 
made the cup of wrath run over. Wild meetings were held, and 
treason walked openly. Papineau moved in a blaze of enthusi- 
asm. Second only to him in seditious eminence was a man of 

291 



292 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



perhaps equal ability but less magnetism, a cultured physician 

of English birth, Doctor Wolfred Nelson, already referred to as 

Papineau's ally in the Assembly. Nelson exerted a wide 
Papineau and 
Nelson move influence, both by his character and by his eloquence. 

rapidly j ~\ 

toward open He imagined that the strife between Reformers and 
rebellion. i , , - 1 /- 

government was a duel between, tyranny and free- 
dom ; and he threw all his weight into the scale for Papineau. 
In the early summer Lord Gosford warned the people of the 
peril of their course, and forbade the holding of seditious meet- 
ings. His proclamation, posted in places of public resort, was 
torn down with yells of derision and shouts of " Long live Papi- 
neau our Deliverer ! " The people organized themselves into soci- 
eties called the " Sons of Liberty." To cut off the revenues, they 
vowed to use no articles that paid duty. When the Assembly met 
in August, the members were for the most part clad in homespun 
garments of the rudest fashion. The demands of this Assembly 
were for nothing less than the withdrawal of all imperial author- 
ity from the affairs of Lower Canada. The governor-general 
promptly dissolved the House. 

Papineau now threw all wisdom to the winds, and made frantic 
appeal to the judgment of the sword. His will was law with cer- 
tain young and excitable sections of the people. Faithful in her 
citizenship, the Church strove to stem the tide of 

The Church , „ ' . , , ^ , , , , 

strives to folly; but vam were the appeals of the best-loved 

check Papi- .... . 

neau'smad- pnests, vam the threats, commands, and excommuni- 
cations of the loyal bishops. The British minority 
organized to defend the law and constitution. All the British 
troops in the province were gathered at Montreal, and the loyal 
Glengarry militia mustered to their aid. From Upper Canada, 
in spite of the fact that there, too, was rebellion gathering head, 
came all the regulars of the province. The governor had taken 
the boll step of sending away his English troops, in order to 
show his confidence in the Upper Canadian militia. The militia,. 
said he, were able and ready to defend their province against all 
rebels. 



REBELLION IN LOWER CANADA. 



293 



In October the British settlers of the rebellious districts, aban- 
doning their farms and harvested crop to the rebels, fled into 
Montreal. The centre of disaffection was the country along the 
Richelieu. At St. Charles, on that stream, the habi- The rebellion 
tans massed in force, and a Liberty Column was ^''^^^^ °^t- 
raised in Papineau's honour. Around this column the rebel forces 
were enrolled, and arms and ammunition were distributed. Near 
by stood an old seigneurial mansion of stone, which was presently 
occupied and fortified by a strong detachment of rebels under 
one Stowell Brown, an American, who took to himself the title of 
" General." Not far off, at St. Denis, was another rebel post com- 
manded by Wolfred Nelson. The centre of Nelson's position was 
a large stone distillery, well barricaded and fitted for defence. 
The first coUision, a mere scrimmage, took place in Montreal, 
early in November, when a meeting of the " Sons of Liberty " was 
attacked and broken up by a loyal club called the " Doric." 

Soon afterwards two expeditions were sent by the commander- 
in-chief. Sir John Colborne, to seize the rebel leaders and scatter 
the insurgents at St. Denis and St. Charles. The movement 
against St. Denis was led by Colonel Gore, with one 

° ^ ' The murder 

field-piece and five hundred men. Colonel Wetherall, of Lieutenant 

Weir, 
with a stronger force, marched upon St. Charles. 

Before any general engagement took place, a small body of loyal 
cavalry coming up from St. John's, on the Richelieu, was attacked 
by the rebels. Then took place an act of barbarism which roused 
the fury of the troops. An intrepid young officer. Lieutenant 
Weir, carrying despatches from Colonel Gore, was captured by 
the rebels. He made a dash for liberty, but was shot down by 
his captors and hacked to pieces with their swords. This atrocity 
was sharply condemned by Nelson ; but from the unhappy lieu- 
tenant's despatches the rebel leader learned of Gore's advance, 
and made ready to receive him. 

On the 23rd of November Colonel Gore attacked St. Denis. 
He marched sixteen miles through the darkness of a stormy night, 
over roads deep with mire, and at ten o'clock opened his assault. 



294 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

But Nelson's position proved too strong for the force at Gore's 
command. The one gun of the besiegers made no impression 
Defeat of Gore o^ the stone walls of the distillery, and the habitans, 
atst. Dems. though a mere handful in numbers, kept up a deadly 
fire. The attack was maintained for some hours ; and then, carry- 
ing his dead and wounded with him, but leaving his one gun igno- 
miniously stuck in the mud. Gore led off his men. At this success 
the rebels were highly elated. 

Two days later, however, their elation was quenched. Colonel 
Wetherall's march had been delayed by the miry roads and by 
broken bridges. On the 25th he brought his guns to bear on the 
rebel position at St. Charles. The pasteboard gen- 
victory at eral, Brown, was no such leader as Wolfred Nelson. 

St. Charles. 

He fled with discreet alacrity at the first rattle of 
the guns. The habitans, thus left leaderless, stood their ground 
bravely, till a hot charge drove them from their breastworks and 
scattered them in blind flight. At a very early stage in the out- 
break Papineau, more warlike with his tongue than with his sword, 
had yielded to the advice of his disf'iples and prudently placed 
himself on the safe side of the American border. Thither the 
other leaders now made haste to follow him. At news of the 
defeat Nelson's force at St. Denis melted like a flurry of April 
snow ; and its disappointed leader, forced to follow the steps of 
his less valiant fellows in folly, was captured as he fled. 

Troops were now arriving from New Brunswick, but there was 
small need of them. The back of the revolt was broken by the 
Thechapeiat victory at St. Charles. Only in the Two Mountains 
St. Eustache. (jistj-jct, north of Montreal, did disaifection still lift an 
armed front. Thither marched Sir John Colborne with a strong 
force of regulars and militia. The rebels were gathered at the 
villages of St. Eustache and St. Benoit. From the former position 
most of its defenders fled on Colborne's approach, but a resolute 
few under one Doctor Chenier threw themselves into the stone 
church of the parish and made a mad but magnificent resistance. 
Not till the roof was blazing, the walls falling in, and most of their 



ATTITUDE OF FRENCH CANADIANS. 



295 



comrades slain, did these deluded heroes seek escape. Nearly 

every man of them sought it in vain. From the embers of 

St. Eustache Colborne led his force to St. Benoit. The leaders 

of the rebels fled before him, and the ill-armed mob, suddenly 

seeing its folly, begged and obtained peace. That night, however, 

a part of the village was burned down by angry British settlers, 

seeking to avenge the destruction of their own homes and harvests. 

When the new year opened the rebellion in Lower Canada was 

practically at an end, though the year 1838 was to see some border 

troubles, the work largely of filibustering Americans. 

„ - ^ ,. . The attitude 

One s first feehng is apt to be surprise that the rebel- of the French 

Canadians 

lion in Lower Canada, after all the windy threats of its toward the 
ringleaders, should turn out so small an affair. But 
the reason is easy to find. It lies in the fact that the real weight 
of French Canada was not behind the rebellion. The rising was, 
indeed, no more the work of the Lower Canadians, as a whole, 
than the revolt going on at the same time in the sister province 
was the work of the Upper Canadians as a whole. In Upper 
Canada, when the extreme Reformers drifted toward rebellion, 
the wiser and more moderate of their party turned against them. 
It was the same in Lower Canada. These men saw that constitu- 
tional agitation was one thing, rebellion quite another. In the 
natural determination to preserve their language and national 
character, this spirited people, with a noble history to look back 
upon, stood together as one man. But when the question of 
fidelity to their allegiance came up, the face of affairs changed. 
Papineau and his fellows thought that they carried French Canada 
in their hands. But the event taught them otherwise. The French 
Canadian Church, as we have seen, threw all its weight into the 
opposite scale. The old seigneurial families, also, stood by the 
constitution. The farming communities over the greater part of 
the province turned a cold, if not actively hostile, shoulder toward 
the rebels. They thought themselves tolerably governed. They 
wanted no civil war. Significant is the fact that many of the 
French Canadian militia were actively loyal, and tendered their ser- 



296 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

vices to the government for the curbing of their misguided coun- 
trymen. Colonel de Hertel, commanding fifteen hundred militia 
in one of the most rebellious districts, reported to the commander- 
in-chief that his troops were stanch in their allegiance and ready 
for any service. With the first collision on the Richelieu loyal 
addresses came pouring in from nearly all th.e French counties. 
It is a crying injustice to a gallant and honourable people to say, 
as is so often said, that the Papineau outbreak was a rebellion 
of the French Canadians. It was the rebellion of a few ambitious 
hot-heads among the French Canadians. By the majority of their 
fellow-countrymen it was repudiated with anger and alarm. 

But the whole province had to suffer for the fault of the few. 

Along the frontier, where gathered the fugitive rebels, there were 

threats of armed American support. Lord Gosford 

departure of was recalled, and Sir John Colborne was made military 

Lord Durham. _,, . . ^ , , 

governor. The constitution of 1791 vvas suspended 
(1838). Lower Canada found herself once more beneath an 
absolute government. But this was not intended to last. In May 
arrived Lord Durham, as governor-general and also as special 
commissioner, with power to settle disputes and to arrange for the 
effective working of representative government in the Canadas. 
His work, which was of deep and lasting importance, will be 
explained in a later section. Suffice to say here that in the 
autumn he threw up his task in anger and returned to England. 
On his departure the smouldering embers of revolt leaped 
again into fitful blaze. In the American towns along the border 

secret societies had been formed, called " Hunters' 

Final out- -.-,,,, , , 

break of the Lodges, whose members were sworn to the support 
Lower of Canadian independence, and to the spreading of 

republican institutions over all the American conti- 
nent. These " Hunters' Lodges " now grew threateningly active ; 
and the American authorities seemed obstinately blind to their 
schemes. In October the rash habitans of the rebellious town; 
ships again prowled in armed mobs, and the Enghsh settlers once 
more fled into the city for safety. In Beauharnois County the 



REBELLION IN LOWER CANADA. 297 

rebels were especially daring. It was Sunday, November 5th, when 
a body of them drew near Caughnawaga, a village of loyalist Iro- 
quois. The Indians rushed out of church, seized their arms, 
routed the bragging rebels, and took a number of prisoners. At 
Napierville was the headquarters of the rising. There Robert 
Nelson, a brother of Doctor Wolfred, proclaimed the republic of 
Canada. On the approach of a loyal force Nelson retired with 
his mob toward the border, seeking to unite with a band of Amer- 
ican allies. On the march a party of the rebels encountered a 
party of militia, and a sharp skirmish took place in which the 
rebels were beaten. The main body of Nelson's force then came 
up, whereupon the militia threw themselves into the church at 
Odelltown, and defended themselves with such vigour that the 
insurgents drew off across the line. The militia were now hot 
with the vindictiveness which civil war is quick to breed, and the 
rebellion was stamped out with small gentleness in Beauharnois 
County. Villages were burned. The gaols were filled with rebels 
and suspects. This was the last flicker of the flame in Lower 
Canada. Further west, however, the aid of the American filibus- 
terers was yet to make sore trouble, the rebels were yet to be chas- 
tised. The rebellious districts being under martial law, a number 
of the prisoners were tried at once, and thirteen, convicted of 
treason, were put to death, while others were banished to penal 
settlements. Some of those executed had been pardoned for tak- 
ing. part in the rebellion of the year before, and well deserved their 
punishment. In other cases, however, it was but the deluded 
tools of the conspirators who suffered, while the leaders, escaping 
in time, lived to win pardon, and even at last to share the rewards 
of office in the land which their madness had convulsed. 

84. The Rebellion in Upper Canada. — During the early months 
of 1837 events in Upper Canada were keeping pace with those in 

the sister province. As in the sister province, those „ , 

^ '- Mackenzie 

who contemplated violence were the very small but proclaims 

^ . rebellion, 

noisy minority. Between the two provmces, however, 

there was this difference. The majority in Upper Canada were 



298 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

actively loyal; the majority in Lower Canada were sullenly in- 
different. 

Early in August Mackenzie gave rein to his folly. He and his 
disciples issued what they presumptuously called a " Declaration 
of the Reformers," a blatant document which the real bone and 
brain of the Reform party made scorn of. Men hke Ryerson, 
Baldwin, Bidwell, fiercely condemned it. This document set forth 
the grievances of the malcontents, renounced imperial allegiance, 
and declared for the rebel cause in Lower Canada. A " Vigilance 
Committee " was established to spread the principles of the Dec- 
laration, and Mackenzie travelled about the province with sedition 
and delusion on his tongue, seeking to inflame the people. In 
some districts he found sympathy ; in others he was rudely silenced 
by the loyalist farmers. The government let him go to the full 
length of his tether. By this masterly inactivity Sir Francis 
Head, the governor, displayed more wisdom than he had shown 
in an earlier stage of the excitement. He thought it better that 
Mackenzie's followers should declare themselves unmistakably 
before force should be used for their correction. It was a shrewd 
and wholesome policy, too, which sent the regulars away to Lower 
Canada at such a moment. It threw the whole defence upon the 
provincial militia and cleared the imperial troops of responsibihty 
for any blood that might be shed. 

The centre of conspiracy was in Toronto. The subtle Rolph, 

whose name appeared on no rebel manifestoes, and whose loyalty 

was relied upon by the governor, was nevertheless deep 

Provisional in the confidence of Mackenzie, and destined by the 
Government ' ^ 

on Navy rebels to preside over the new government. Stylins: 

Island. ^ ° ^ & 

themselves "Patriots," like their fellow-rioters in Lower 
Canada, the rebels estabUshed what they called a " Provisional 
Government " on Navy Island, in the middle of the Niagara River. 
The flag of the proposed republic carried two stars, one for each 
of the Canadas. To us at this day the action of the rebels seems 
much hke that of schoolboys playing war. On the 25 th of Novem- 
ber, when the insurgent habitans were being routed at St. Charles, 



MONTG OMER Y'S TA VERN. 



299 



William Lyon Mackenzie was issuing a proclamation calling on 
the Canadians to rise as one man. This screed was issued by him 
as " Chairman pro tern of the Provisional Government of the State 
of Upper Canada." 

On Yonge Street, a few miles out of Toronto, stood Montgom- 
ery's Tavern, the rendezvous of the rebel forces. Toronto was 
unguarded. On December 4th came news that the Toronto 
rebels were marching on the city. The governor, ti^reatened. 
officials, and leading citizens threw themselves into the City Hall, 
determined to defend to the last the arms and ammunition there 
in store. At the same time messengers were sent flying to Hamil- 
ton, to summon Colonel MacNab wiih his fighting militia of the 
Gore. Mackenzie's object in attacking Toronto was to capture 
the military stores in the City Hall, for the equipment of his ill- 
armed followers. But the occasion slipped by him. Half-way 
to the city the rebels turned about and gave up the enterprise. 
Their numbers went on steadily increasing at Montgomery's Tav- 
ern ; but meanwhile MacNab arrived with the men of Gore, and 
Toronto was saved. 

Blood flowed straightway. The mob at Montgomery's Tavern 
was being drilled vigorously by one Van Egmond, an old officer 
of Napoleon's. The rebel commander-in-chief was 

^ The fight at 

Samuel Lount, a blacksmith. A loyalist captain, named Montgom- 

ery'sTavem. 

Powell, taken prisoner by Lount's men, escaped by 
shooting his guard. Then Colonel Moodie, a loyalist officer, en- 
deavouring with scornful bravado to ride through the r^bel lines, 
was shot from his horse. But not long was the revolt to go un- 
bridled. On December 7th the governor and Colonel MacNab, 
with five hundred militia behind them, marched out to the attack. 
Nearly a thousand men held the lines at Montgomery's Tavern, 
but they were scarce half armed. Some carried scythes, some 
axes, some pitchforks. Anxious to avoid bloodshed, the governor 
called upon them to lay down their arms ; but Mackenzie's sole 
reply was a demand for the redress of grievances. The militia, 
dressed only in rough homespuns, but no less dauntless than if 



300 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

scarlet had covered their ardour, advanced on the rebel lines. 
At first the exchange of volleys was hot, but the skirmish was 
soon over. In all directions scattered the rebels ; and Mackenzie 
fled over the border. The victors burnt Montgomery's Tavern, 
and the house of a rebel leader in the neighbourhood ; but the 
{^w prisoners taken were pardoned by Sir Francis. For some 
days after this event the militia of the couhtry districts kept 
flocking into the city, till the governor had more troops on hand 
than he knew what to do with, and had to send most of them 
home. 

The rebel flag still flew on Navy Island, where Mackenzie, with 
a handful of his followers and some American allies, kept up the 
childish fiction of a provisional government. The American 
border cities were eager in Mackenzie's cause. Not till the fol- 
lowing year were proclamations issued by the President and by 
the governors of border states, warning American citizens against 
attacking a friendly power ; and these warnings not seldom were 
loftily disregarded. 

Mackenzie, in his ridiculous estabhshment on Navy Island, was 
generously issuing grants of land to all who would take up arms 
Thedestnic- ^^ ^^ rebel cause. He was watched by MacNab's 
steamer militia, on the Canadian shore just opposite ; and the 

Caroline. j.jya^j lines kept firing across the current. In Macken- 
zie's hands was a steamboat called the Cai'oline, used for carrying 
stores to the rebel camp. On the night of the 27th Colonel Mac- 
Nab sent over a band of marines and volunteers, in row-boats, to 
capture the vessel. The daring venture was led by Lieutenant 
Drew, of the Royal Navy. The Caroline was lying under the ginis 
of Fort Schlosser ; but the intrepid assailants cut her out, bundled 
her crew ashore, set her on fire, and sent her flaming over the 
Falls. The Americans, ignoring their own breaches of the laws 
of neutrahty, cried out against this action, because, forsooth, the 
Caroline was an American vessel. The British government 
therefore apologized ; but Colonel MacNab was rewarded with 
knighthood. 



FIGHT AT PELEE ISLAND. 30 1 

Mackenzie at length took down his two-starred flag, and Navy- 
Island was deserted. Not long afterwards he was arrested by the 
New York state authorities, tried at Albany for attack- pightat 
ing a friendly nation, and sentenced to an imprison- P^i^e island, 
ment of eighteen months. But American conspiracies against 
Canada went on none the less. A great threefold attack was 
planned, from the cities of Ogdensburg, Buffalo, and Detroit ; 
but in the over-abundance of would-be leaders lay our safety. 
The leaders quarrelled, for all could not command at once ; and 
the central invasion fell through. On the east, however, a party of 
fifteen hundred rebels and filibusters crossed to Hickory Island, on 
the Canadian side, — and then crossed back again (February 22, 
1838). The only serious operation of the raiders was in the west. 
Four hundred of them, under one Sutherland, crossed from Michi- 
gan to Pelee Island, off Amherstburg, where they encountered a 
small force of regulars. The river was frozen, and amid the 
blocks of ice a sharp fight took place. The invaders were routed 
with loss, and their leader captured. While in prison he made a 
formal statement, declaring that these attempted invasions were 
encouraged by the American government, in the hope that Canada 
might be gained by the methods which had brought Texas into 
the Union. But the testimony of a convicted traitor is not to be 
considered convincing. 

Sir Francis Bond Head had now resigned the governorship, 

rather than obey the Colonial Ofifice and appoint Reformers to the 

Executive Council. His place was filled by the harsh 

^ ^ Vengeful 

and inflexible Sir George Arthur, lately governor of spirit of the 

TT TA- iTii i,T^^ loyal party. 

Van Diemens Land, who spurned the Reformers, 
and identified himself heart and soul with the Compact. The 
spirit of revenge ran high in the province, the jails were full of 
prisoners, and there was much persecution of suspects. The 
rebel leaders, Matthews and Lount, were hanged ; and more exe- 
cutions would have followed but for the sharp interference of the 
home government. The effect of the rebellion was to discredit 
the Reformers for a time ; but it so increased the arrogance of the 



302 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Compact that their rule became more and more intolerable. The 

most loyal began to demand the overthrow of such a tyranny. 

And Reformers were much strengthened in their purpose by the 

recommendations of Lord Durham. 

As we have seen, the departure of Lord Durham, in the fall of 

_. . 1 8-^8, was followed by fresh outbreaks in Lower Canada. 

The invasion ^ •' 

of Van In Upper Canada it was followed by new attacks on the 

frontier. The iniquitous " Hunters' Lodges" collected 
a force at Ogdensburg, and the citizens turned out joyously to 
watch the attack on Canada. On November nth a body of refu- 
gees and American adventurers, to the number of about two hun- 
dred, sallied across to Prescott and entrenched themselves on a 
hill. They were led by a brave but misguided Pohsh exile, named 
Van Schultz, who fancied that, because his own country was a 
victim of tyrants, therefore Canada must be in a like unhappy 
case. On the 15 th a party from Kingston attacked the invaders, 
and drove them into one of those strong, circular stone mills of 
which we have so often spoken. There they defended them- 
selves bravely, while sending vain appeals across the river for a 
help which the applauding crowds were much too prudent to give. 
At this juncture, the American authorities intervened and took 
possession of the adventurers' boats. On the day following a 
force of regulars arrived, with artillery, and the insane undertaking 
of Van Schultz fell straight to ruin. The walls of the mill were 
battered down, and the remnants of the invaders were made 
captive. Van Schultz and eleven of his. fellows were tried, con- 
demned, and hung. 

In spite of the tardy proclamation of President Van Buren, for- 
bidding American citizens to support attacks on Canada, the 
The flght at people of Detroit now lent aid to a band of raiders 
Sandwich. ^^^q planned the capture of Amherstburg. In Decem- 
ber, T839, about four hundred and fifty of the rebels crossed over 
to Windsor, burned a vessel and some houses, captured a small 
guard of militia, and murdered a peaceful citizen who refused to 
join their cause. Then they marched into Sandwich, on the road 



LORD DURHAM'S REPORT. 303 

to Araherstburg. Their captives somehow managed to escape, 

which so enraged them that they killed the next man they met, 

a surgeon named Hume. At Sandwich they were confronted 

by Colonel Prince with two hundred militia, and a fierce struggle 

ensued. It ended in a complete victory for the militia. The 

invaders, what were left of them, fled back to Windsor, and 

then across the river to their refuge. The militia, furious at the 

murders which had been done, shot four of the prisoners at once. 

This was answering barbarism with barbarism, and fortunately 

went no further. The other captives were in due time brought 

to trial. Three were executed ; others were transported. Many, 

made prisoners here and at Prescott, were pardoned on account 

of their youth. This raid against Sandwich was the last splutter 

of the rebeUion. 

85. Lord Durham, and his Report. — Great as was the misery 

which it had caused in Canada, the rebellion was not without its 

compensations. It aroused the best minds in Eng- 

^ . ° Lord Durham, 

land, and the colonies came in for a close attention 

which led to the correction of many grave abuses. The brief 

rule of Lord Durham, in the summer months of 1838, marked 

the end of the old order in Canada. 

Lord Durham was an eminent English statesman of the Liberal 
school. Sent to Canada not only as governor-general, but also 
as high commissioner, \\£. was armed with a very wide but vague 
authority. He seems to have been somewhat self-important, fond 
of imposing ceremony, and over-sensitive to criticism ; but he 
was a keen and honest observer, a firm but humane administrator ; 
and his report showed a breadth of view, a sagacity and insight, 
such as no British statesman before him had brought to bear on 
colonial questions. He arrived at Quebec in May. Six months 
later he resigned in a huff and went back to England. But that 
briefest of administrations was long enough to build an imperish- 
able monument to his fame. 

While studying the situation in all the provinces. Lord Dur- 
ham found himself compelled to deal with a number of po- 



304 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

litical prisoners. Many of the ringleaders had escaped into the 

States. Most of the prisoners he pardoned ; but from this 

indulgence he left out eight of the most conspicu- 

His dealing ^ ° ^ 

with the ous offenders, including Wolfred Nelson. There 
rebels. 

was now no trial by jury in the province, the 

constitution having been suspended. Lord Durham presumed 
upon his vague authority, took upon himself the office of 
both judge and jury, and banished the culprits to Bermuda, on 
pain of being executed for treason if they should return. This 
action of the governor-general's was irregular, and his enemies 
made great capital out of it. The governor of Bermuda com- 
plained that there was no authority by which he could hold the 
exiles. The British government disallowed the decree ; and in 
Parliament Durham was criticised so harshly that he threw up 
his office in anger. But before leaving he proclaimed that as 
the government had refused to uphold him in his punishment 
of notorious rebels, he now extended full amnesty to all who had 
been concerned in the insurrection. So sweeping an indulgence, 
which included Papineau himself, was regarded as an encourage- 
ment to treason ; nevertheless the angry governor would not 
withdraw it. 

But during the summer, ere the storm brewed in Bermuda and 
London had had time to break on the governor's castle in Que- 
bec, Lord Durham got done the work that he had 
Confedera- ' ° ' 

tionsug- come to do. He despatched responsible agents to 

each province, to inquire exactly into the conditions 
of government and the grievances of the people. He also invited 
the governors of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, 
and Prince Edward Island, with delegates from their Legislatures, 
to meet and confer with him at Quebec. This conference was a 
most memorable event. It talked over a plan for nothing less 
than the Confederation of the Provinces of British North America. 
But for this it was felt that the time was not yet ripe ; and to the 
idea of a lesser union between Upper and Lower Canada Lord' 
Durham turned his more immediate care. 



ACT OF UNION. 



305 



The report which he submitted to Parliament is one of the 
most masterly papers ever written on colonial affairs. Its opin- 
ions and suggestions were supported by a wealth of 
facts. It pointed out that the state of government in ham's 
all the provinces was one of ceaseless strife between 
the executive and representative bodies ; and it reminded Parlia- 
ment that since 1688 the stability of Britain had depended on the 
responsibility of the government to the Legislature. It called 
attention to the fact that the same grievances prevailed in all the 
provinces ; and it fearlessly declared that " while the present 
state of things is allowed to last, the actual inhabitants of these 
provinces have no security for person or property, no enjoyment 
of what they possess, no stimulus to industry." This was a crush- 
ing arraignment of the colonial system as it stood. As a cure for 
race jealousies in Lower Canada, Lord Durham proposed a legis- 
lative union of the Canadas, which would cause parties to divide 
■ on new lines of local or sectional interest rather than on those of 
race and language. For the cure of the deeper, constitutional ill 
that was gnawing at the vitals of the country, he urged that the 
Executive should be made responsible to the Assembly. To 
draw the provinces closer together, both in sentiment and in 
trade, he recommended the building of an intercolonial rail- 
way. And to secure the protection of local interests, he 
urged that municipal institutions should be established without 
delay. 

86. The Canadas united. — On the basis of Lord Durham's 
report a bill was brought into Parliament by Lord Russell ; but 
before its passage it was submitted to the government The Act of 
of Upper and Lower Canada. This was done with ^^^°'^- 
admirable judgment by Mr. Charles Poulett Thompson, who was 
now sent out to Canada as governor-general. In Lower Canada 
the scheme of union was accepted at once. It had to go before 
the Council only, for, the constitution of 1791 being suspended, 
there was no Assembly to consult. Had the French been con- 
sulted, they would have rejected the scheme with scorn, as they 



3o6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

imagined it to be a mere cloak for the blotting out of their lan- 
guage and nationality. In this fear, as events will show, they 
were very much mistaken. To get the bill of union accepted in 
Upper Canada was a task far harder. It tried all Mr. Thomp- 
son's tact. Both branches of the Legislature were at this time in 
the hands of the Compact, which felt loftily virtuous because it 
had crushed the rebellion without help from the home govern- 
ment. The idea of an Executive responsible to the people was 
hateful to the Compact. But such an Executive was intended by 
the Act of Union, as was shown by a despatch from Lord Russell 
on the Tenure of Office (1839), which the governor-general 
read to the Upper Canadian Legislature. He stated that he had 
" received Her Majesty's commands to administer the government 
of these provinces in accordance with the well-understood wishes 
and interests of the people." In Lord Russell's despatches he 
was required to call to his counsels and employ in the public 
service those persons who " have obtained the general confidence 
and esteem of the province " ; and it was declared that thereafter 
certain heads of departments, such as attorney-general, surveyor- 
general, receiver-general, and other members of the Executive, 
would be called upon to retire from the public service when 
motives of public poUcy should require it. 

The principles proclaimed by Mr. Thompson, and laid down 
in Lord Russell's despatch, were welcomed with joy by the Re- 
formers ; but to the Official party they meant nothing 

The Compact ' , , , 

bows to the less than defeat. Nevertheless, to the lasting honour 

will of the ° 

home govern- of their loyalty be it said, they accepted the defeat. 
The Executive Council of Upper Canada, the very 
core of the Compact, forced to the conviction that this was the 
will of Westminster, brought in the hateful bill as a government 
measure and carried it through the Upper House. In the Assem- 
bly it was debated with great bitterness, but the public good and 
the wish of the Crown prevailed, and the measure passed. With 
some changes it was again brought up at Westminster, and passed 
in July, 1840. 



THE NEW CONSTITUTION. 307 

It was not put into effect, however, till February of the follow- 
ing year, when Upper and Lower Canada again became one 
province. For iust half a century had they dwelt 

^ .... Triumph of 

apart. The proclamation of reunion was accom- the moderate 
.panied by another despatch from Lord Russell, in 
which it was laid down that " the governor must only oppose the 
wishes of the Assembly when the honour of the Crown or the 
interests of the Empire are deeply concerned." The act was a 
triumph of moderation. The moderate Reformers were victori- 
ous. The extremists of both parties were dissatisfied, — the 
one side regarding it as a half-measure, the other as the enter- 
ing wedge of republicanism. Poulett Thompson, who had so 
judiciously accomplished his task, was made Lord Sydenham of 
Kent and Toronto. 

By the new constitution the Legislature of the United Canadas 
consisted of a governor ; an Upper House, or Legislative Coun- 
cil, of twenty members, appointed by the Crown ; xhe new 
and a Lower House, or Assembly, of eighty-four constitution, 
members, elected by the people. The representation in both 
Houses was divided equally between the two provinces. The 
Executive Council was composed of eight members, selected by 
the governor from both Houses. Those chosen from the Assem- 
bly went back to the people for reelection before they could per- 
form the duties of office, thus assuring themselves that they had 
the people's confidence. Arrangement was made for a permanent 
Civil List of ^75,000 a year ; but, this provided for, the Assembly 
had full control of the rest of the revenues. Bills for the expendi- 
ture of public moneys had to originate with the government, — a 
measure wisely planned to check extravagance. The first Parlia- 
ment under the union was held at Kingston (June, 1841) ; and 
in his address from the throne the governor-general declared 
himself bound by the principles of Responsible Government. It 
was not till some years later, however, that these principles came 
to be regarded as firmly established and in full working order. 
The first session saw many important measures introduced, — for 



308 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

regulation of the currency and the customs, for the extension of 
canals and other public works, for the spread of common school 
education, and for the establishment of municipal institutions. 
This last was a great boon to the country. By giving each town- 
ship control of its local and internal affairs, sectional jealousies 
were reduced, the French Canadians were reassured, and the 
people generally were put in the way of learning the lesson of 
self-government. The old bitterness between parties and between 
races was not to be wiped out in a moment by the magic of an 
Act of Parhament ; but the widening of the arena made it less 
personal. New influences springing up soon began to blur the 
old lines by drawing new ones over them. The parties dividing, 
the people began to be known as Conservatives ^ and Reformers. 
The names had then a meaning which was later to become hope- 
lessly confused. 

The municipal institutions, referred to in the preceding para- 
graph, call for a word of explanation. In the earlier days of our 
history each provincial legislature performed the duties of a 
municipal council, and was therefore burdened with minute local 
affairs of which the majority of the members knew nothing. In 
Ontario the Legislature early began to relieve itself by giving 
Municipal towns, counties, and villages the control, to a large 
ins 1 utions. (jggj-ee, of their own local business. By the union 
of 1 84 1 this system, with modifications, was extended to both 
provinces, and was rapidly enlarged and perfected. Not till some 
years after Confederation, however, were municipal institutions 
introduced in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ; and in Prince 
Edward Island they are still but imperfectly developed. The Act 
of Confederation gave each provincial legislature full control of 
municipal institutions within its borders ; and with the exception 
just noted, each province has now an efficient municipal code. 



1 In the original meaning of the terms Conservative and Reformer, these repre- 
sented two different methods of serving the State. The Conservatives thought 
mainly of preserving what was good in institutions, the Reformers of getting rid 
of what was bad. 



RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT SET BACK. 309 

under which each separate municipal district — county, city, town, 
township, village, parish, as the case may be — attends to its own 
matters of public improvement, public health, and public morals, 
and taxes its inhabitants for such purposes. There are slight 
variations of procedure in the different provinces, but the gov- 
erning body in each case is the council, — village, parish, town, 
county, or city council. In village and township councils the 
chief officer is called the reeve ; in town and county councils he 
is called the warden, and in city councils he is the mayor. The 
members of city councils are known as aldermen. 

In the autumn Lord Sydenham was thrown from his horse ; and 
he died some time later from the effects of the accident. He was 
succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot. The Conservatives in England 
had now taken the reins of government ; Sir Robert Peel was 
prime minister; there was a Conservative colonial secretary, 
Lord Stanley, in Downing Street ; and the new governor-general 
was an old-school Tory. The Family Compact party in Canada 
now looked for a return to their views, a reversal of the Responsible 
reforms which they had found so bitter to swallow. meetsT^^* 
But they were disappointed. The colonial secretary *^•^^''^• 
would make no change ; and the new governor-general walked 
firmly in the footsteps of his Liberal predecessor. He called to 
the Executive Messrs. Lafontaine, Baldwin, Hincks, and Daly, who 
were the leaders of the Reform majority in the Lower House. In 
the following year Sir Charles Bagot resigned his post on account 
of ill-health, and was succeeded by Sir Charles Metcalfe. The 
new governor-general was no believer in Responsible Govern- 
ment for the colonies ; but he was a very firm behever in the 
need of upholding the prerogative of the Crown. The only 
responsibility he cared to recognize was his own responsibility to 
the Queen in Council. With these views, he made several official 
appointments without the advice of his Executive. In vain did 
Baldwin and Lafontaine remonstrate. The governor insisted that 
the right of patronage was in his hands. He would not yield it 
up, said he, for the purpose of enabling certain of his ministers to 



3IO A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

buy favour with the Assembly. Baldwin and Lafontaine resigned 
ofifice. In all the provinces the quarrel was eagerly watched. A 
general election took place in Canada. The governor was sus- 
tained. The Reformers were defeated. The Conservatives had 
a majority in the new House, and Mr. Draper, the Conservative 
leader, formed a ministry. Responsible Government was set back 
three years. 

In 1844 the seat of government was moved from Kingston to 
Montreal. The colonial secretary had by this time pardoned all 
the rebels but Mackenzie, who did not get his amnesty till five 
years later. In the new Parliament which met at Montreal in 
November of 1845, several of the pardoned rebels sat as mem- 
bers. Lord Metcalfe having resigned, his place was filled by Lord 
Cathcart. And now came up a new and burning question in 
„ . . ^ Canadian politics. Sir Allan MacNab, the loyal hero 

Beginning of ^ ' ^ 

trouble over of the rebellion, was a leading member of the Assem- 

Rebellion ' ° . 

Losses legis- bly under Draper's administration. He brought in a 

bill for the compensation of those persons in Upper 
Canada on whom the rebellion had brought loss. This became 
famous as the Rebellion Losses Bill. About ;^40,ooo was voted 
to satisfy these claims. On this the representatives from Lower 
Canada came down upon the ministry with a like demand. The 
loyaHsts of the upper province, who professed to beheve that all 
the French Canadians had been rebels, protested angrily. A 
commission appointed to inquire into the matter reported that, 
though the claims amounted to a quarter of a million, ;^ 100,000 
would cover the real losses. The Draper government thereupon 

awarded ^10,000. At this both provinces got ex- 
and the final cited, — Lower Canada because the small amount was 

triumph of 

Responsible a mockery of her claims. Upper Canada because she 
Government. ■ ^ \ ■, ■ ^ ■, t^ 

considered the grant a compensation to rebels. Dur- 
ing the excitement came a change of government in England. 
A new governor-general, one of the most firm, judicious, and 
capable that England ever sent out, arrived in Canada. This was 
Lord Elgin, a son-in-law of Lord Durham (1847). The year after 



MAINE AND NEW BRUNSWICK DISPUTE. 311 

his arrival elections were held. The Conservatives were defeated, 
and the Reformers found themselves with a majority in the new 
House. Mr. Draper, accepting the principle of responsibility, 
handed in his resignation. Lord Elgin, proclaiming the same 
principle, accepted the resignation, and called the Reform leaders, 
Lafontaine and Baldwin, to form a new government. This, in 
1848, was the complete victory in that long struggle for Responsi- 
ble Government, which we saw foreshadowed on the coming of 
the loyalists, and which fills the whole horizon of Canadian his- 
tory from the War of 181 2 to 1848. The same year saw the same 
victory achieved in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia, by steps 
which we shall trace in a succeeding section. In Prince Edward 
Island it was not to be won till 1852 ; and in Newfoundland not 
till 1855. 

87. Responsible Government gained in New Brunswick, and 
Nova Scotia. — In the provinces by the sea Official and Reformer 
alike had watched with loyal indignation the rebellions in the 
sister provinces. The friction that kept the borders The Maine 
of Upper and Lower Canada aflame reached eastward Brunswick 
to the Disputed Territory between Maine and New ^o^'^'^^ry- 
Brunswick, and nearly gave rise to war. This was in 1839; but 
to understand the quarrel it will be necessary to go back to the 
treaty of 1 783, which professed to define the boundary between 
the British possessions and those of the new republic. When 
Great Britain recognized her revolted colonies as an independent 
nation, their eastern boundary, as has been said, was defined to 
be the St. Croix River, with a line drawn from its source to the 
highlands dividing the waters falling into the Atlantic from those 
emptying themselves into the St. Lawrence. Immediately dis- 
pute arose as to which was the St. Croix River, the Americans 
claiming it to be a stream now known as the Magaguadavic, far to 
the east of the true St. Croix. This question was set at rest by 
discovery of the remains of Champlain's ill-fated settlement on the 
island at the river's mouth. But the St. Croix had branches ; and 
dispute arose as to which branch was the true St. Croix. The 



312 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

commissioners appointed to decide this point agreed upon the 
most westerly branch ; and at its source they erected a stone 
monument as a perpetual landmark (1798). The next diffi- 
culty was in regard to the " highlands." The British claimed that 
they were a line of heights of which Mars Hill, about forty miles 
north of the monument, was the chief; and this claim was justi- 
fied by the fact that the spirit, if not the letter, of the treaty of 
1783 intended that all the tributaries of the St. John should lie 
in British territory. The Americans claimed that the highlands 
referred to in the treaty were those running a hundred miles fur- 
ther north, skirting the St. Lawrence valley, — a claim which, if 
allowed, would give them a number of the largest tributaries of 
the St. John. It was a difference which the commissioners could 
not settle. Therefore it remained open, and in time, as pioneers 
begdn to cast their eyes on those fertile tracts and rich timber 
areas, it gave rise to such wrangling that the district in debate 
became known as the Disputed Territory. 

The quarrel waxed hot during the governorship of Sir Howard 
Douglas, when Maine militia gathered on the border and threat- 
Maine ened to seize the territory. A party of adventurers, 
Disputed^^ under a man named Baker, saUied in, and hoisted the 
Territory. gtars and Stripes on the Madawaska. Sir Howard sent 
his troops to confront the Maine militia ; but he left the civil 
authorities to deal with Baker's raid. A constable with his posse 
hastened up to Madawaska, cut down the flag-staff, seized Baker, 
rolled the American flag under his arm, and carried them both to 
Fredericton. Baker was brought to trial and fined. The men 
of Maine stormed, but did not strike. In the hope of a settle- 
ment the matter was then, in 1829, referred to the King of the 
Netherlands, who, after careful investigation, declared that the 
rights of the case were beyond his power to determine. He pro- 
posed a division of the territory, giving the larger share to the 
Americans ; but as each claimant believed he ought to have the 
whole, this plan was acceptable to neither. The bone of conten- 
tion remained, and both parties eyed each other angrily across 



THREATS OF WAR. 313 

it. At length, in 1839, while Ogdensburg, Buffalo, and Detroit 
were breathing threatenings and slaughter against their neigh- 
bours over the line, Governor Fairfield of Maine concluded that 
the time was ripe for taking in the coveted areas. In January a 
band of lumber thieves, in defiance of the laws of both Maine 
and New Brunswick, invaded the territory and cut a lot of valuable 
timber. The governor of Maine sent a sheriff and posse to drive 
them out and seize their logs. At news of this a band of New 
Brunswick lumbermen gathered to repel the men of Maine, the 
guardianship of the territory being in the hands of the New Bruns- 
wick government. A fight took place in the wintry forest. The 
Americans were driven back ; and one of their leaders, a land- 
agent named Mclntyre, was made prisoner and carried off to 
Fredericton on a horse-sled. To compensate for this rebuff, the 
Maine men seized McLaughlin, the regularly appointed warden 
of the Disputed Territory, and carried him captive to Augusta. 

Both Maine and New Brunswick now wanted to fight it out. 
Maine sent eighteen hundred militiamen to the Aroos- war threat- 
took. Sir John Harvey, then governor of New Bruns- ^^^^' 
wick, issued a proclamation, calling on Governor Fairfield to with- 
draw his troops, and reasserting the acknowledged right and duty 
of Great Britain to guard the territory till the question of ownership 
should be settled. Fairfield vehemently denied this right, and 
issued a call for ten thousand state troops in order that he might 
go in and take possession. Sir John Harvey then sent up two 
regiments of the line, with artillery, and some companies of en- 
thusiastic volunteers from along the St. John River valley. The 
whole province was full of fight, and the governor had hard work 
to hold the troops in check. Nor was the excitement confined to 
Maine and New Brunswick. On the one side the haters of Eng- 
land throughout the Union, led by Daniel Webster, clamoured for 
war. On the other side the Canadas sent sympathy and offers of 
aid ; and Nova Scotia, in loyal ardour, voted all her militia and 
;^ 1 00,000 in money to aid New Brunswick in her quarrel. This 
patriotic vote was carried with a roar of cheers from the floor of 



314 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



the House and from the close-thronged galleries. In England, 
however, no less a journal than the Times, with that ignorant con- 
tempt for colonial interests which has more than once cost us dear, 
proposed that the Americans should be given all they asked ; nay, 
even that they should have all New Brunswick lying west of the 
St. John River. Fortunately President Van Buren was calm and 
just in the matter, and was not to be clamoured into war as Madi- 
son had been in 1812. He sent General Winfield Scott to the 
scene of action. Scott, whom we have met before in these pages, 
was a brave general, but temperate and judicious. He stopped 
the warlike stir of Maine's hot-headed governor, and began sober 
negotiations with Sir John Harvey. The two generals had fought 
against each other, and learned to respect each other, at Lundy's 
Lane and Stony Creek. They soon came to an agi-eement. A 
temporary joint occupation was decided on ; and what is some- 
times jocosely termed the "Aroostook War" was brought to a 
bloodless end. 

But the difficulty remained. The Maine settlers went on en- 
croaching ; and a fresh survey threw no new light upon the sub- 
TheAshbur- j^^t. At last, in 1842 the Hon. Mr. Baring and 
ton Treaty. y^^ Daniel Webster were appointed commissioners to 
settle the dispute. They met ; and Baring, as was to have been 
expected, was overmatched by his strong and keen opponent. Of 
the twelve thousand square miles under dispute five thousand were 
given to New Brunswick, and seven thousand, by far the most 
valuable region, went to Maine. The line due north from the 
monument was continued till it struck the St. John just beyond 
the mouth of the Aroostook. Thence the St. John was the boun- 
dary as far as the St. Francis, which stream was made the north-east 
boundary of Maine. New Brunswick swallowed the decision as 
best she could ; and indeed, with Webster as her foe and England 
eager only for a settlement, she was fortunate to get what she did. 
Mr. Baring was made Lord Ashburton, and the treaty based on 
his labours was named for him. 

In the Senate of the United States, however, this division was 



ASHBURTON TREATY. 315 

bitterly opposed. The Senate wanted all. It was on the point 
of rejecting the treaty, when it was suddenly brought to terms 
by Mr. Webster. Behind closed doors Webster un- Webster's 
folded a map which he had had all through the con- duplicity, 
ference, but which he had kept carefully from the eyes of Mr. Bar- 
ing. The map purported to be a copy of one made by Frankhn, 
containing the boundaries as actually agreed on by the treaty of 
1783. The eastern boundary, marked with a red line, was exactly 
what the British claimed. With this evidence before them to show 
that the British had been worsted, the Senate made haste to accept 
so good a bargain, and the Ashburton Treaty was ratified (1842). 
To return to the question of Responsible Government in Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick, we must go back to 1839 and Russell's 
despatch on the Tenure of Office. It was held by the jr g . 

Reformers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that this wick Assem- 
bly rejects 
despatch applied to all the provinces. The governor Responsible 

of New Brunswick, Sir John Harvey, read the despatch 
to his Legislature when it came, and declared for its acceptance. 
But so well had he soothed all strife that the Assembly no longer 
seemed anxious for its rights. A measure to adopt Responsible 
Government was defeated after full debate by just one vote, the 
casting vote of the speaker. 

In Nova Scotia the case was very different. Sir Colin Camp- 
bell was by no means Sir John Harvey. When the despatch came 

to his hands he said nothing about it, but continued ^^ 

° ' The quarrel 

in his old course. The Assembly having passed by a continued in 

^ ° . Nova Scotia. 

sweeping majority a vote of want of confidence in the 
Executive, the Reformers expected the Executive to resign. The 
governor, however, said that his advisers suited him, whether they 
suited the Assembly or not. In vain the Assembly appealed to the 
despatch, and to Sir John Harvey's interpretation of it. Sir Cohn 
Campbell said he could interpret the despatch for himself. Party 
feeling again grew hot. A memorial to the Throne was talked of, 
asking for the removal of Sir Colin. Angry meetings were held 
aU over the province, and vehement was the flow of party elo- 



3l6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

quence. The times had called forth brilliant men in a province 
which has ever been fruitful of that rare product. The Reformers 
were led by such champions as Howe, Uniacke, and Young ; but 
the Conservatives had a leader who was not second to Howe him- 
self in eloquence and authority. This was James W. Johnstone, a 
man who won the devotion of his friends and. the respect of his 
most obstinate rivals. 

When Mr. Poulett Thompson visited the Maritime Provinces, 
he had an interview with Howe, and found reason to support the 
claims of the Reformers. Sir Colin Campbell was recalled ; and 
Lord Falkland, who succeeded him, tried a policy of compromise. 
Certain members of the Executive were retired, and three of the 
Reform leaders, Howe, Uniacke, and MacNab, were called to take 
their place. This formed a coalition government, the members 
of which mingled like oil and water. An oft-debated bill for the 
incorporation of Halifax was passed ; but harmony was not to be 
expected with Howe and Johnstone in harness together. On al- 
most every question they pulled opposite ways. On the subject of 
education they came into open conflict. Howe favoured free com- 
mon schools, and one provincial university. Johnstone favoured 
denominational schools and colleges, with provincial grants. It 
was soon seen that the coalition must fall. Lord Falkland, having 
gone over to the Conservatives, dissolved the House without con- 
sulting the Reform members of the government. Then, a vacancy 
occurring on the Council, he followed the example of Metcalfe in 
the upper province, and appointed a new member on his own re- 
sponsibility. Upon this Howe, Uniacke, and MacNab resigned 
their offices (1844). Once more was the battle joined between 
governor and Assembly. Between Howe and Falkland it grew 
violently personal. Falkland tried, but in vain, to lead away the 
Reformers from their chief. Howe, not content with the weapons 
of argument and eloquence, lampooned his foe in bitter verse. 
The Colonial Office, seeing that Falkland's usefulness was gone, , 
recalled him, and put the great peace-maker. Sir John Harvey, in 
his place. 



RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN NOVA SCOTIA. 317 

Sir John at once invited the Reform leaders back into the 
Council ; but they refused on two grounds, — first because there 
was a Conservative majority in the House, and second because 
they had had enough of coalition. They said they 

J ^ J J Triumph of 

would wait till the approaching elections should show Responsible 
1 1 iiT-r^,,. Government 

whom the people wanted. Late ni 1847 the elections in Nova 

Scotia, 
took place ; and when the House met, in January, it 

showed a majority of Reformers. Johnstone retired, and Howe 

was called upon to form a government. This, in 1848, was the 

triumph of Responsible Government in Nova Scotia. 

In New Brunswick the end of the boundary dispute and the 
departure of Sir John Harvey were followed by a drop in the 
lumber trade, which brought all the province into The dispute 
trouble. At the same time the city of St. John was New Bntns- 
scourged by fire, which added to the general depres- ''^^^^• 
sion. A few years before this the province had had a large 
balance to its credit ; but now it found itself in debt, and this 
state of affairs was charged to the Reformers and their extrava- 
gant meddling with the revenue. In 1842 an election was held. 
The Conservatives were victorious, and when Sir Charles Met- 
calfe in Canada was quarrelling with his ministry over the right 
of appointing to office, the New Brunswick Assembly passed 
resolutions thanking the autocratic governor-general for his firm 
stand against republicanism. But the sincerity of these profes- 
sions was soon tested. The governor of New Brunswick, Sir 
William Colebrook, trusting to the docile spirit of the Assembly, 
appointed his son-in-law, an Englishman, to the office of pro- 
vincial secretary. There was angry protest at once, and four 
members of the Council resigned. The Conservatives said that 
Sir William had no right to appoint an outsider ; the Reformers 
said he had no right to appoint any one. The appointment was 
presently cancelled by the home government, and the position was 
given to a New Brunswicker. 

With the coming of Lord Elgin to Canada as governor-general, 
the principles of Reform went abroad on the air, even to Conser- 



3l8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

vative New Brunswick. In fact, the Conservative ministry itself 
brought in a measure for Responsible Government, — whence it 
Coalition and flight have been said of them as it was said of Sir 
nls^nsibie Robert Peel, that they caught the Reformers in 
taiifew^^^* swimming and stole their clothes. The measure 
Brunswick. ^^^^ passed by an overwhelming "majority. Govern- 
ment and Opposition, Conservative and Reformer, voting side 
by side (1848). A new ministry was formed, including the 
two Reform leaders, Wilmot and Fisher. Responsible Govern- 
ment was now established beyond the reach of question, in New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the united Canadas. In New 
Brunswick, however, the principle thus established in theory was 
not applied in actual practice till 1854, when, the Reformers 
gaining a majority in the House, the Conservative ministry made 
way for a Reform cabinet. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

SECTIONS: — 88, the Rebellion Losses Bill. Confederation 
PROPOSED. 89, the Reciprocity Treaty. 90, Prince Ed- 
ward Island, Newfoundland, the North-west, and British 
Columbia. 

88. The Rebellion Losses Bill. Confederation proposed. — Let 

us turn again to the upper provinces. Lord Elgin had called 
upon the Reform leaders, Lafontaine and Baldwin, to The Rebellion 
form a government in Canada. Responsible Govern- I'osses again. 
ment, now in the very hour of its triumph, was to confront a crucial 
test. In 1846, as we have seen, those citizens of Upper Canada 
who had suffered in the rebellion got compensation from the public 
funds, while citizens of Lower Canada who had suffered in the 
same way were denied it. We have noticed, too, the cause of 
this distinction. But as soon as the Reformers came to power, 
a bill was brought in to authorize the payment of ;;^ 100,000 in 
satisfaction of claims in Lower Canada. The bill carefully pro- 
vided that no compensation should be made to any one who had 
taken part in the rebellion. The British party, however, raised a 
loud cry of "No pay to rebels." Bitter party feelings, race 
jealousies yet more bitter, again flamed out. 

The object of the Conservatives was to break up the union. For 
this purpose a " British North American League " was formed, with 
headquarters at Montreal. And now, out of the politi- 

1 J 1 , £• 1 r , , ,., British North 

cal darkness arose the first true dawn of the splendid American 
idea of Confederation (1849). Sewell had suggested 
it in 1 81 6, but this had been no more than the flash of a meteor, 
bright for a moment and then forgotten. Durham had dreamed 

319 



320 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



of it in 1838 ; but the dream had faded. It had been jeered into 
oblivion by these very Conservatives who now began to realize its 
splendour and its power. Not till after twenty years of turbulent 
growth was the scheme to reach fulfilment, — but never again was 
it to pass out of men's minds. The charm of the idea just now, 
in the eyes of the British party, was the fact that it offered a way 
out of the union, as well as a better control of the French Cana- 
dian vote. In a union of the British North American provinces, 
Canada, of course, would make two provinces ; and Upper Canada 
would again be free to manage her own affairs. The Conserva- 
tives made urgent appeal to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for 
support ; but Nova Scotia and New Brunswick listened coldly. 
And now the wheel of circumstance took an astonishing turn. 
The party of loyalty was to be seen threatening treason in their 
righteous wrath at seeing treason go unpunished. The British 
party began to talk annexation. A few unbalanced spirits threat- 
ened to call in the aid of the United States, in case the French 
claims were granted, and a union of all the provinces refused. 
The Reformers, once all too friendly with sedition and violence, 
Tiow stood fast for Constitutional Government. 

In the Parliament House at Montreal the bill was fought 
furiously step by step, the opposition being led by the soldier- 
Lord Elgin pohtician Sir Allan MacNab. When it was finally 
Relfeihon" passed by a determined majority, the opposition 
Losses Bill, strained every nerve to persuade Lord Elgin to veto 
it. Responsible Government trembled in the balance. But 
Lord Elgin had the courage of his convictions. He saw that 
the measure, whether a wise one or not, was that of a ministry 
which had the confidence of the people. He saw that the money 
to be spent was money which the Provincial Legislature had a 
right to spend. He saw that no imperial prerogative was in 
danger. Ignoring the threats of the minority, on April 25th he 
signed the bill. Responsible Government had triumphed. 

As Lord Elgin left the Parliament Buildings the news of his 
resolute action preceded him. A swiftly gathering mob, repre- 



OTTAWA THE CAPITAL. 32 1 

senting much of the wealth and respectabihty of the city, pursued 
his carriage with jeers, and stones, and rotten eggs. The news 
spread hke wildfire. The mob swelled in numbers 

^ The Parlia- 

and in wrath. The Assembly was holding a night mentBuiid- 

-. 11 1 1 • , 1 I'lgs burned. 

session. Presently the crowd, armed with muskets, 
stones, and flaring torches, surged against the Parliament House. 
Through the gleaming windows crashed a shower of stones that 
drove the members from their seats. The mob rushed in, and 
cleared the House. One rioter carried off the mace. Another 
seated himself in the speaker's chair, placed the official hat upon 
his head, and roared "The French Parliament is dissolved." 
Others applied the torch, and suddenly the great building was 
in flames. The timbers were dry, and the conflagration was swift. 
By midnight the building, with all the state records and a valuable 
library, was a heap of glowing ruins. 

For the next two days the city seethed with wrath, while Parlia- 
ment held its sessions in Bonsecour Market. Lord Elgin was 
formally thanked by the Legislature, while the minority 

J J ° \ J The capital 

drew up bitter resolutions demanding that the home removed to 

,..,,, Ottawa. 

government should recall him and disallow the bill. 
The home government, however, sustained him ; and for months 
the stanch old Loyalists and Tories growled out their ill-temper in 
rebellious threats. But Montreal's brief career as a capital was 
over. She had forfeited all claim to it. Parliament met no more 
beneath the shadow of Mount Royal. For a time it borrowed 
the fashion of our early educators, and "boarded round." It 
sat alternately at Toronto and Quebec, four years in each city. 
Then, growing tired of the expense and inconvenience of this 
peripatetic plan, it called upon the Queen to choose it a perma- 
nent home. In 1858 Her Majesty's choice was made. It fell 
upon the httle lumbering village of Bytown, on the Ottawa, 
remote from the rivalries of cities and the perils of the border. 
The name was changed to Ottawa ; and Parliament met amid 
the shriek of sleepless saws and the thunder of the Chaudiere 
cataract. 



322 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

In the year following these events, the British North American 
Provinces entered upon a period of trade depression which sorely 
r, ^ „ .. ■ tried their manhood. The " Corn Laws " had been 

Great Bntain 

repeals the repealed by England, which forced Canadian grain to 

and waviga- compete with the foreign product on even terms. In 
tion Laws. . « i 

1849 the provmces suffered a cruel blow in the repeal 

of the Navigation Laws. These laws had shut mit x^merican ships 
from the carrying trade of England, and created the great shipping 
industries of the Maritime Provinces. When this protection was 
torn away, a cry of distress went up from every colonial seaport. 
Everywhere, for a time, was panic. But left to their own resources, 
the pluck and enterprise of this northern people quickly asserted 
themselves. New channels of trade were opened, new business, 
new undertakings, absorbed our young energy ; and " good times " 
came again. The period between the final triumph of Respon- 
sible Government and the active movement for Confederation, a 
period of about fifteen years, saw a splendid advance in wealthy 
population, and public enterprise. Education was spread abroad, 
railways and canals were built, telegraph and steamship lines were 
established, common roads began to enlace the wilderness with 
their civiHzing network. Most significant, from a national point 
of view, was the effort made in this period to unite the provinces 
by the iron bands of an intercolonial railway. 

The idea of an intercolonial railway originated in that fruitful 

source of good, the brain of Lord Durham. It lay unheeded for 

a time : but a few years later began an era of railway 

Intercolonial ^ ^ o j 

Railway building in Great Britain and the United States, and the 

negotiations. . , , , ■ i -i 

impulse spread to the colonies. A railway was built 
between Montreal and Portland, Maine ; and in 1846 a survey was 
undertaken with a view to a railway between Quebec and the Mari- 
time Provinces. This was just Lord Durham's scheme revived. 
The report of the engineers who conducted the sur\'ey was favour- 
able. It spoke highly of the country that would thus be opened 
up. Of the various routes proposed, it gave the preference to that 
following the Gulf coast of New Brunswick, familiarly known as the 



CLERGY RESERVES AND SEIGNEURIAL TENURE. 323 

" North Shore." As the railway was designed to be no less a 
military than a commercial line, it was expected that Great Britain 
should help to build it ; but the Colonial Ofifice threw cold water on 
the scheme. Thus discouraged in their hopes of a trade with the 
St. Lawrence, the Maritime Provinces turned their eyes toward 
New England. Sentiment grew in favour of a railway from Halifax 
to St. John, and thence westward to the American seaboard cities. 
In 1850 a Railway Convention was held at Portland, Maine, where 
delegates from the New England States fraternized with those from 
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The outcome of this gathering 
was the scheme of the European and North American Railway. 
But this movement toward a purely American trade found a strong 
opponent in Howe, who went to England, and so eloquently advo- 
cated the intercolonial project that the government grew interested. 
In 185 1 a meeting of provincial delegates was held at Toronto to 
discuss the scheme and arrange for a division of the cost. Every- 
thing looked toward success. But suddenly the home govern- 
ment announced that it would not help that part of the proposed 
line which would connect St. John with the main line between 
HaHfax and Quebec, — the so-called European and North Amer- 
ican section. This upset the whole project. There were new 
meetings, and discussions, and delegations to England, till at last 
each province sullenly went its own way. The Canadas began to 
build the Grand Trunk, with a line down the St. Lawrence from 
Quebec. New Brunswick pushed ahead with the European and 
North American, connecting St. John with Shediac. Not till after 
Confederation had been made a fact was the great uniting railway 
to be built. 

89. The Reciprocity Treaty. — In 1854, while England and 
France were fighting side by side in the Crimea against the great 

Bear of the North, French-Canadians and English- „, 

' ° Clergy- 

Canadians were working together in the development Reserves and 

of our country. To this period belongs the peaceful Tenure 

1 ■ /-I ^1 -^ -. ^, ^ abolished, 

conclusion of the Clergy Reserves dispute. The Cana- 
dian Legislature passed an act formally declaring the separation 



324 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



of Church and State. Rectories already endowed were not inter- 
fered with, and certain provisions were made for the widows and 
orphans of the clergy. The balance of the Reserves, both fiinds 
and lands, were distributed among the different townships in pro- 
portion to their population, for purposes of education and local 
improvement. In the following year steps were taken to free 
the small farmers of Lower Canada from the bondage and incon- 
venience of the Feudal or Seigneurial Tenure, by buying out the 
claims of the seigneurs. This reform, though set on foot in 1855, 
was not completed till four years later. The habitans themselves 
paid a small portion of the seigneurial claims, but the bulk of 
expense, to the sum of ;j^ 65 0,000, was borne by the province at 
large. 

Besides this quieting of vexed questions and salving of old 
wounds, the summer of 1854 saw the accomplishment of an im- 
The Recipro- portant treaty between the provinces and the United 
city Treaty, gt^teg, ^his was the famous Reciprocity Treaty, which 
introduced a season of friendly intercourse and busy commerce 
between Canadians and their southern kinsmen. The treaty pro- 
vided for a free exchange of the products of the sea, the fields, 
the forest, and the mine. It admitted Americans to the rich 
Canadian fisheries, and to the advantages of Canadian river and 
canal navigation. To Canadian farmers, lumbermen, and miners, 
it was beneficial ; but to the Maritime Provinces it refused the 
only boon worth being considered in exchange for the fisheries, 
namely, the admission of provincial ships to the American coasting 
trade. On the whole, the treaty was a good thing for Canada, 
though perhaps more advantageous to the Americans. Its pro- 
visions were to remain in force for ten years, after which either 
party to the agreement was left free to end it by giving one year's 
notice. As will be seen later on, it was terminated by the Ameri- 
cans, who thought that by depriving Canada of their markets they 
would force her into the Union. 

The effect of the Crimean War on Canada was to stir up a new' 
and eager loyalty. The Royal Canadian looth, one of the most 



DRIFT TOWARD CONFEDERATION. 



325 



effective regiments of the British regular army, was altogether 
recruited in Canada. The battle of the Alma called forth con- 
gratulatory addresses from the Canadian Legislature, 

., .. r r r , ,. ^,., ^ , Effects of the 

with a gift of ;£j 20,000 for the relief of widows and or- Crimean war 

phans of those who fell in the war. Among the heroes 
of the struggle were three sons of Nova Scotia. Major Welsford 
and Captain Parker fell at the head of the storming party that car- 
ried the Redan. In Hahfax stands a monument to their heroic 
memory. General Fenwick Wilhams covered himself and his native 
land with glory by his magnificent defence of Kars, a fortress in 
Asia Minor. The exploit won him a baronetcy from the Queen 
and a pension from the British Parliament. Sir Fenwick Wilhams 
was afterwards made governor of his native province. From 
New Brunswick, too, went men of loyalist breeding and tradi- 
tion, who brought back to their quiet colonial homes on the St. 
John the most coveted of English, French, and Turkish medals, 
awarded them for valour on the battlefield. Such deeds of 
Canadians gave an impulse to our military spirit, and in 1855 ^ 
Volunteer Force was organized for home defence. This force 
has been steadily maintained and developed to the present 
day. 

At this time the principle of an elective Upper Chamber was 
accepted in the Canadas. In 1856 it was decided that as fast as 
seats became vacant by death or by the retirement The Canadas 
of the Ufe members appointed by the Crown, new efecfj^e""^ ^'^ 
members were to be elected by the people to serve ^pp^"" House, 
for a term of eight years. But vacancies occurred seldom in the 
peaceful Upper House, and long before it became an elective 
body all was changed by Confederation. 

In the political field events tending toward Confederation began 
to tread hard on one another's heels. The great idea was soon 
brought into the sphere of practical politics. How 

, • , Mi 1 , 1 • , ,. . Drift toward 

this came about will be told m the succeeding chap- Confedera- 

T . , „ . - tion begins. 

ter. Let us now turn our attention to the affairs of 

other sections of the country, where the great problems which 



326 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

troubled the Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, had not 
begun to press for solution, or had pressed but lightly. 

90. Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, the North-west, 
and British Columbia. — In Prince Edward Island a census was 
Triumph of taken in 1848, showing a population of 62,634. Seeing 
Government Responsible Government an accompHshed fact in 
Edward^ the neighbouring provinces, the island asked for the 
Island. same privilege. But the Colonial Office said no. The 

province, declared Lord Grey, was as yet too small for such 
a dignity. But it was not too small, thought Lord Grey, to 
pay the expenses of its own Civil List, with the exception of 
the governor's salary. This the Assembly agreed to do, on all 
revenues being surrendered to its hands, and on the granting of 
Responsible Government. Addresses and despatches passed to and 
fro across the water, and with the examples of the sister provinces 
before their eyes the island x^ssembly had somewhat the best of 
the argument. The Colonial Office yielded the point ; and the 
session of 1851 saw Prince Edward Island under full Responsible 
Government. 

After this, and up to the date of the memorable Charlottetown 
Conference, the history of the island chiefly centres about the 
The land \'3XiA question. In 1854 the provincial government 

question. purchased, for resale to settlers on freehold tenure, 
the great Worrell estate of some eighty-one thousand acres. The 
Land Purchase Bill under which this was done was warmly ap- 
proved by the home government. The Colonial Office was much 
troubled over the land dispute. It felt the reality of the griev- 
ance, and was yet bound in all justice to defend the rights of the 
landlords, who had come by their estates in a legal manner. The 
Assembly then proposed that the home government should 
guarantee for the province a loan of _;^i 00,000, to be used in 
purchasing the estates of these absentee proprietors. This pro- 
posal was at first looked on favourably, but a little later it was met 
by a refusal. Then, in 1858, a royal commission was demanded,' 
to look into the whole matter and arrange for its early settle- 



LAND COMMISSION REPORT. 327 

ment. This was agreed to, and in i860 three commissioners 

were appointed, one by the home government, one by the 

proprietors, and one by the Assembly on behalf of 

... Commission- 

the tenants. The commissioner chosen to act for ers appointed 

the tenants was the Nova Scotian leader, Mr. Howe. 
In this same year the estates of the Earl of Selkirk were pur- 
chased by the province — no less than sixty-two thousand acres 
being magnanimously given up by the heirs for the small sum 
of ^6586. 

The commissioners spared no pains over their task. They 
traversed the island from corner to corner, held courts of inquiry 

in the villages, and brought landlords and tenants 

r . ' . . Report Of the 

face to face. Their report, given in 1 861, is a mas- commission- 

terly document. It strongly condemned the careless 
method in which the lands of the province had been originally 
granted away ; and it therefore held the home government 
mainly responsible for the evils of the case. It recommended, as 
the only just and satisfactory solution, the application of the Land 
Purchase Act (under which the Worrell and Selkirk estates had 
been already acquired) to all the great absentee holdings. And 
it further recommended that the home government, whose care- 
lessness was to blame, should guarantee the loan of _;^ioo,ooo 
which the province had asked for. It was further recommended 
that proprietors holding more than fifteen thousand acres should 
be obliged to sell, down to that amount, when called upon to do 
so by their tenants ; and that the terms of sale should be those laid 
down by the commissioners, or else such as should be determined 
by arbitrators. It was urged, also, that arrears of rent beyond the 
three years immediately preceding the Commission should be 
cancelled. This report was promptly accepted by the Assembly ; 
but the home government refused to guarantee the loan, and 
the proprietors proposed another mode of settlement. This 
caused deep indignation in the province ; and the question was 
left an open sore. Delegations were sent to England to argue 
the matter, but in vain. It was not till after she entered Confed- ■ 



328 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



eration, and, as part of a great Dominion, became strong enough 
to demand justice at the cost of much sacrifice of red tape, that 
the island province saw her ancient grievance settled (1875). 

To Newfoundland the year 1841 brought a boon, in the coming 
of Sir John Harvey to take the office of governor. To every 
Sir John province which he was sent to govern Sir John's term 

Newf<Kind- of office meant peace and advancement. Under his 
land. j,jj]g j-oads improved, bridges were built, land increased 

in value, settlement spread swiftly. The sharp disputes between 
the Upper and Lower House were stopped by a union of the two 
chambers, in 1842. This "Amalgamated Assembly" lasted till 
1849, when her constitution was restored to the province. In 
1840 a sailing packet had been subsidized to carry on a fort- 
nightly mail service between St John's and Halifax. In 1844 this 
was changed to a steam packet. Banks and commercial houses 
prospered greatly, and the harvests of the sea increased no less 
than those of the field. 

But in 1846, as Sir John Harvey was about leaving, came one 
of those great conflagrations which have so cruelly smitten the 
The burning island capital. St. John's was built chiefly of wood, 
of St. John's. ^^^ -jg houses much huddled together. When, on the 
9th of June, during a high wind, the fire broke out among these 
buildings, it licked up everything before it. The great brick and 
stone warehouses of the merchants crumbled into dust. The 
huge oil-vats at the water's edge poured their blazing contents 
into the harbour, and a number of ships were burned. By the 
close of that grievous day three- fourths of the town had vanished, 
and twelve thousand people were homeless. Help flowed in gen- 
erously from England and the sister colonies, and the people set 
themselves bravely to the work of rebuilding their city. That 
same autumn came another stroke of ill-fortune. In September 
the island was visited by a frightful storm, which overwhelmed 
ships, fish-stages, fences, bridges, and houses along the shore. _ 
These two calamities in such swift succession left lasting marks 
on the province. 



RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN NEWFOUNDLAND. 329 

About this time Newfoundland began to feel that she, too, 
wanted that Responsible Government which the other provinces 
seemed to consider so unspeakably precious. But Responsible 
Great Britain declared she was not ripe for it. The ii°NewSund- 
excitability of her people was looked upon with dis- ^^"^^^ 
trust. The Colonial Office wished her to serve a longer appren- 
ticeship, so to speak. In 1854, however, the refusal was with- 
drawn, and Newfoundland took upon herself the full manage- 
ment of her affairs, with an executive responsible to the electors. 

After this great step followed several years of prosperity. A tele- 
graph line was run across the island, and then a submarine cable 
to the mainland, the success of which led to the laying 
down of the first Atlantic cable from Newfoundland to tion dis- 

cu,ss6d in 

Ireland, in 1858. After this the chief historic events, Newfound- 
up to the year when the other provinces confederated, 
were the bloody riots which disgraced the provincial elections. 
In one of these riots, which took place in St. John's in May of 
1 861, a number of persons were killed. Then came another 
period of deep depression. An unwise system of poor relief had 
been growing up since 1855, and had now become so prevalent 
that a third of the revenues was thus wasted, and pauperism 
spread alarmingly. At last, about the time of the Charlottetovvn 
conference, the government began to talk of Confederation as 
the only way out of their difficulties. But while the great subject 
was under discussion there came a change. The fisheries once 
more yielded abundantly, and rich copper mines were discovered. 
At once the curious, insular jealousy of the ancient province spoke 
out (1869), and Confederation was rudely spurned. 

From the furthest eastward cHffs and vast green seas of New- 
foundland we turn to the blossoming grass-plains of the North- 
west. In the peace which had followed the union TheNorth- 
of the rival fur-companies, population grew, though ^®^*' 
slowly. Immigration was discouraged. The half-breeds, as we 
have seen, considered the land all theirs. The policy of rulers 
and people alike was to keep the country one great hunting- 



330 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ground. The fur-trade was still sole king. The world was taught 
to believe that half a continent of wheat-lands and rich pasturage 
was an Arctic barren, fit only for beavers and foxes. It was the 
same selfish and lying policy as that which so long strangled the 
growth of Newfoundland. Fish-traders would keep the island a 
desert, fur-traders would keep the North-west a wilderness, lest 
population, should interfere with their profits. Around the trad- 
sir George ing-posts, however, -which the company's tireless gov- 
Simpson. ernor. Sir George Simpson, established on every river, 

lake, and bay, arose prosperous little settlements ; and slowly there 
went abroad a report of the fairness of the land. In 1835, as we 
have seen, the Red River settlement was organized as the District 
of Assiniboia, under control of a President and Council. Sir 
George Simpson chose his Council, fifteen in number, from among 
the Selkirk settlers and half-breeds. The population was now 
about five thousand. 

Among Simpson's feats of travel and exploration was a journey 
westward to Vancouver Island, northward through Alaska, and 
Vancouver thence through Siberia and northern Europe to Lon- 
isiand. jJq^_ Most important to us at this stage in our story 

was his establishment of trading-posts in Vancouver Island and 
on the western slope of the Rockies. These were the beginnings 
of the youngest member of our Confederacy, the giant province of 
British Columbia. Sir George Simpson won knighthood by his 
achievements in the North-west. He retired on a pension ; and 
died in i860, ten years before the community whose growth he 
had watched and fostered came to full manhood as the self- 
governing province of Manitoba. 

The history of the Pacific province may be said to have begun 
in 1849, when the Hudson Bay Company made Victoria, on Van- 
couver Island, the capital of the western department of its terri- 
tories. The first governor was Mr. Richard Blanchard. Beyond 
the employes of the company, Governor Blanchard had but thirty, 
settlers under him. After two years he gave up his office in dis- 
gust, and was succeeded by Mr. James Douglas. The company 



"FIFTY-FOUR FORTY, OR FIGHT!" 331 

was expected to colonize the island, and the governor was armed 

with power to start full legislative machinery as soon as needed. 

The mainland, a sea of mountains, was at this time called New 

Caledonia. Hitherto its history had been httle more than the 

record of visiting mariners, Spanish and Enghsh ; „ , . 

the overland trips of Mackenzie and Simpson : and British 

^ , Columbia, 

the establishment of some lonely tradmg-posts. But 

in 1856 and 1857 there came a startling change. Gold,^ in great 
quantity and easy of access, had been discovered in the sands of 
the Fraser and Thompson rivers. The news spread on the four 
winds, and the wild canons and wooded steeps grew alive with 
adventurers and gold-seekers flocking in from every land. Many 
came from the diggings of California, where they had well learned 
the lesson of lawlessness. A strong hand was found needful on 
the reins of government. 

It was about this time that the boundary dispute between Brit- 
ish North America and the United States, long ago settled in the 

east, grew acute here in the west. To understand it 

° The question 

we must go back a few years. The vast region out of bounda- 

of which the province of British Columbia and the 
states of Oregon and Washington have been carved was once 
called the Territory of Oregon. In 1826 the United States Com- 
missioners had agreed to a division of this territory ; and the 
Columbia River, whose navigation was to be free to both coun- 
tries, was by them acknowledged as the boundary, from its mouth 
to the 49th parallel. This 49th parallel was the accepted boun- 
dary line across the interior of the continent. But the matter was 
left open J and the people of the republic, about 1845, began to 
demand all the territory in question. They claimed the whole 
coast up to the southern boundary of Russian America (now 
Alaska), at latitude 54° 40'. The American cry was "Fifty-four 
Forty, or Fight ! " They had learned the wisdom of making ex- 



1 The harvest proved so rich that during the next twenty years not less than 
;6,ooo,ooo was exported from British Columbia. 



332 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

travagant demands where colonial possessions were concerned. 
They did not get all they asked ; but they got much more than 
they were entitled to, namely, the magnificent region of Puget 
Sound and the lower Columbia valley. This was yielded up by 
the British Commissioners in 1846, when the Oregon Treaty was 
concluded. By this treaty the boundary line, instead of sweep- 
ing away south with the Columbia, was continued due west along 
the 49th parallel " to the middle of the channel which sepa- 
rates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence southerly 
through the middle of the said channel, and of the Fuca Straits, 
to the Pacific Ocean." 

Unfortunately, however, this definition still left uncertainty. 
Through Fuca Straits there ran three important channels, divided 

by large islands. The British claimed that the most 
The quarrel ■' ° 

and final southerly of these, called Rosario Channel, was the one 

settlement. ■' 

intended by the treaty. The Americans claimed that 

the most northerly, or de Haro Channel, was meant. The British 
were wilUng to compromise on the middle, or Douglas Channel. 
But the Americans would not listen to this. The adjoining 
territory of Washington tried to extend its laws and enforce its 
authority over the island of San Juan, which lay between de 
Haro and Douglas channels, and was resolutely claimed by the 
British. In 1854-1856 a few American squatters settled on the 
island. Then the situation grew critical. These people called 
for the protection of American laws. In 1855 an American tax 
collector seized and sold a number of sheep belonging to the 
Hudson Bay Company, The province of British Columbia was 
now independent of the company, but the company's influence 
was great ; and it took all Governor Douglas's prudence to hold 
his people back from reprisals which must have led to war. 
The little island of San Juan now lay under two flags, — the 
British colours floating from the Hudson Bay post, and the 
United States colours from the flagstaff of the American tax col- 
lector. In 1859 the dispute suddenly grew so bitter that Great 
Britain and the United States hung on the very verge of war. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA AND VANCOUVER ISLAND. 333 

And all this over a pig ! It chanced that a pig belonging to the 
Hudson Bay Company trespassed on some unenclosed grounds 
of one Lyman Cutler, a squatter who claimed to be an American 
citizen. Mr. Cutler shot the pig, and scornfully refused to pay 
for it. This demand for payment was interpreted as an outrage 
on American citizens; and straightway (1859) a certain very 
warlike and ambitious General Harney, commanding the United 
States troops in Washington Territory, sent a force to occupy the 
island and administer United States laws. This force was com- 
manded by another bellicose officer. Captain Pickett. The peo- 
ple of Victoria were eager for a prompt attack on the invaders. 
Governor Douglas had abundant force at his command for the 
purpose ; and there were several British warships on the spot. 
But the British contented themselves with a forbearing policy. 
They warned the Americans of their trespassing, and awaited the 
decision of the government ; while Harney and Pickett proudly 
held on to their conquest. On learning of this unwarrantable 
action, however, the American government expressed earnest regret 
and removed General Harney from his command. General Win- 
field Scott, who was not new to the office of pacifier, was sent 
to San Juan Island. As in the New Brunswick and Maine diffi- 
culty. General Scott agreed to a joint occupation till the matter 
could be settled by treaty. Thus, in i860, the trouble was patched 
up. It was not finally disposed of, however, till twelve years later ; 
when the Emperor of Germany, acting as arbitrator, decided in 
favour of the American claim, and de Haro Channel was fixed 
upon as the boundary. 

But this dispute has carried us ahead of our story. In 1858, 
for convenience in controlling the lawless mining element which 
had just taken possession of the mainland, Vancouver separation 
Island and British Columbia were made separate gov- ofvancouver 
ernments ; and the litde mining town of New West- British^"** 
minster, on the Fraser, became the capital of the new Columbia, 
province. This division proved unsatisfactory. Owing to the 
large influx of Americans from San Francisco and elsewhere, an 



334 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

agitation in favour of annexation to the United States began to 
show itself on Vancouver Island. But now, in the older prov- 
inces, the dream of one United Canada from Atlantic to Pacific 
was drawing near its splendid reaUzation. British sympathies, and 
loyal sentiments, and some subtle influences from the movement 
in the east, made themselves felt on the western shore, and the 
idea of annexation dropped from view. The loss of Vancouver 
Island would have been an irreparable loss to the Canada that 
was now to spring up. It would have given our western gates 
into the hands of the stranger. The immediate result of the dis- 
satisfaction was the reunion of Vancouver Island with the main- 
land in 1866: and the two became the province of British 
Columbia, with Victoria once more the capital. This was just 
when the eastern provinces were preparing for that greater con- 
solidation which made memorable the year 1867. For five years 
more was British Columbia to stand alone amid her mountains, 
before joining the Great Dominion whose birth we are to watch 
in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SECTIONS : — 91, Growth of Confederation Sentiments in the 
Canadas. 92, THE Charlottetown Conference, Quebec Con- 
ference, AND Quebec Resolutions. 93, How the Quebec 
Resolutions were received. 94, Confederation accom- 
plished. 

91. Growth of Confederation Sentiment in the Canadas. — A 
great idea may gradually impress itself on men's minds and 
charm their imaginations, but they will, as a rule, make small 
effort to reaUze it, so long as their material needs are satisfied. 
When it seems to offer a way out of some inconvenience and 
annoyance, then it is said to come within " the sphere of practi- 
cal politics," and men stir themselves to attain it. The idea of 
Canadian Confederation appealed to broad statesmanship, and 
commanded a vague popular respect, for some time before it 
actually touched the people in the guise of a remedy for exist- 
ing troubles. As soon as its expediency was shown, it descended 
into the sphere of practical politics. Men grasped it eagerly. It 
became an accomplished fact. 

The practical need of Confederation first and most plainly 

made itself felt in the Canadas. Canada then consisted of two 

provinces, each with differing local interests and tra- 

^ ' ° The need of 

ditions, but so united that each was compelled to Confedera- 

interfere in the other's local affairs. Out of this un- 
comfortable intimacy Confederation would open a way. At the 
time of the union the parliamentary representation of the two prov- 
inces had been fixed at forty-two members for each ; but in a few 

335 



336 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

years immigration began to flow into the upper province in such a 
volume that in population it far outstripped its elder sister. In less 
than fifteen years after the union, Upper Canada had two hundred 
and fifty thousand more people than Lower Canada ; and loud 
became her cry for a larger representation. This the French prov- 
ince would not hear of. The French regarded equality in repre- 
sentation as the safeguard of their speech and institutions. In 1853 
the representation was increased for both sections, giving sixty-two 
members to each. But immigration continued to favour the Lake 
province, and the disparity in population grew more and more 
serious. " Representation by Population," familiarly known as 
" Rep. by Pop.," became the rallying cry of Upper Canada; but 
the lower province set its face obstinately against a change which 
would be sure to weaken her power. Parties were now so eagerly 
divided, both in the House and in the country, that a strong 
government was hard to maintain. Conservatives and Reformers, 
or, as they were nicknamed, Tories and Grits, were so evenly 
balanced that some small local issue would prove sufficient to 
turn the scale, defeat the government, change the hands on the 
helm of state, and disturb the country with new elections. The 
cry of Representation by Population was taken up by the Reform- 
ers of the upper province, whose ranks then grew apace ; where- 
upon the French party threw themselves into the arms of the 
Conservatives, and the balance of power was again made equal. 
Ministries succeeded each other in undignified and ineffectual 
haste ; and while the general prosperity of the country made great 
progress, needful legislation was often brought to a standstill. 

The idea of a Confederation of all the provinces now crept 

down into the lobbies, and politicians began to think there might 

be something in it. While talked of as a broad 

The Maritime ° 

Provinces measure of statesmanship, merely, it left the electors 

indifferent. . -^ 

cold. Imagination is a plant of slow growth in the 
constituencies. Even now, for a time, the seedling of our great- 
ness was overshadowed by a smaller and therefore more easily 
comprehended project ; namely, that of a Fede7-al union to be 



THE FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION. 337 

substituted for the Legislative union between Upper and Lower 
Canada. This plan, if it had been carried out, would have left 
each of the two provinces with a Parliament of its own to conduct 
its local and internal affairs, while a central government would 
have been formed to deal with such affairs as should affect both 
provinces in common. Meanwhile the Maritime Provinces, happy 
in the successful application of Responsible Government and mak- 
ing rapid progress in wealth and population, were content, and 
therefore inclined to look askance at any change, however bril- 
liant its prospects. But events were to occur beyond their bor- 
ders which would break down even the indifference of content. 

During this formative period, so big with the future of our 
country, great men were thrown to the front in all the provinces. 
In the Canadas arose such men as George Brown, 

° ' The Fathers 

John A. Macdonald, George Etienne Cartier, Alex- ofconfedera- 
ander T. Gait, Francis Hincks. In order to realize 
that the Confederation of Canada was no mere party measure, but 
an act based on the broad foundation of the people's sentiment 
and the people's will, we have but to remember that the men who 
stand out most prominently among the " Fathers of Confedera- 
tion " were the opposing party chieftains. Brown and Macdonald. 
For the accomplishment of this project the great Reformer and 
the great Conservative worked together. In New Brunswick the 
chief mover to the same noble end was the Reform leader, Mr. 
S. L. Tilley. In Nova Scotia the strong hand which brought the 
province into the union was that of the Conservative chief. Doctor 
Charles Tupper. The superb edifice thus raised amid the har- 
mony of once jarring factions is committed to the jealous keeping 
of all Canadians, without regard to race or creed or party. The 
reason now for the existence of opposing parties in Canada is 
but the natural difference of opinion as to how this Confederation 
may best be served, secured, adorned, and upheld among the 
nations. 

It was in 1857 that the Parliament of the Canadas was first 
brought face to face with Confederation. Mr. A. T. Gait, mem- 



338 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ber for Sherbrooke in the Eastern Townships, moved the con- 
sideration of the subject in an able speech which, though at the 

, time it seemed to gain shght attention, nevertheless 
Succession of o o j 

ministries in struck root in the minds of his hearers. At this time 

the Parlia- 
ment of the the government was carried on under a system of 
Canadas. . . 

double leadership. Whichever party was in power, 
each province insisted on contributing a premier, so that the 
ministry had to be a sort of two-headed monster. Governments 
were named from the two chiefs, — as the MacNab-Morin govern- 
ment, the Baldwin- Lafontaine, the Cartier-Macdonald, the Brown- 
Dorion administration. In the year following Gait's trumpet 
blast, came up the strife of local interests over the removal of 
the capital to Ottawa (1858). The Cartier-Macdonald govern- 
ment, which supported the Queen's recommendation in regard to 
Ottawa, was defeated. A new election brought the Reformers 
into power by a scant majority, and the Brown- Dorion ministry 
took the reins of government. But majorities at this time were 
as shifting as the sands of the sea, and the Reformers met defeat 
without delay. The Conservatives again took office, but with a 
majority so slender and unreliable that there was nothing to be 
seen ahead but speedy wreck. It was clear that a new and bold 
policy was needed. Gait was taken into the ministry, and Con- 
federation was announced as the government platform. The 
strength of the platform was seen at once, — but the Colonial 
Office was at this time not alive to the imperial spirit, and turned 
a cold shoulder to the scheme. The Maritime Provinces were 
coquetting with the idea of a Maritime union among themselves, 
and would not give the subject even a hearing. The Cartier-Mac- 
donald government was forced to seek another platform. 

But now these ten years of abundant prosperity were drawing 
The Victoria to a close. Bad harvests, joined with agricultural 
by^the Prince*^ depression, made all the provinces restless and ready 
of Wales. £qj. ^ change. At the same time stirring events 
turned the currents of provincial feeling toward loyalty and union. 
The completion of a great national enterprise, the Victoria 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 



339 



Bridge of the Grand Trunk Railway at Montreal, which was 
hailed then as One of the world's wonders, excited a family 
pride in the sister provinces. To celebrate with due ceremony 
the opening of this great work, and to lay the corner-stone of the 
new Parliament Buildings at Ottawa, the Prince of Wales came 
out to the provinces and was everywhere received with an out- 
burst of loyal affection. His coming was most timely. It served 
as tangible evidence to the colonies of their importance to the 
CrowA. In the following year events across the border spoke 
yet more loudly for union. There had been unstable spirits in 
the colonies, whose leanings were toward annexation with the 
American Republic. But when, in 1861, the War of Secession 
broke out, and North and South took each other by the throat, 
then annexation ceased t(5 look enticing. 

There had long been a tempest brewing in the Republic. The 
Northern cry for the abolition of slavery was but one phase of the 
trouble. The real point at issue was that between 

T^Tl ft A TTI ftTI 0.t\ Tl 

the individual states and the central government. Did warof Seces- 

sion. 

the sovereign power lie in the states or in the Union ? 
In the South, the group of slave-holding states, it was generally 
held to he in the states themselves. In the North it was held 
to lie in the Union ; and Northern sentiment, favouring abolition, 
and proclaiming the final supremacy of the Federal government, 
seemed to threaten the constitutional rights of slave-holding states 
to control their own affairs. When, in i860, the States-Rights 
doctrine was defeated in the Presidential election, and Abraham 
Lincoln, a pronounced abolitionist, was elected to the office of 
President, the storm broke out. The States-Rights party held that 
any state had a right to quit the Union when it would, — and in 
December South CaroHna, acting on this principle, seceded. In 
the next few months her example was followed by other Southern 
members of the Union, till the seceders numbered eleven states, 
with a population of about nine millions. These states formed a 
new* Confederacy, with its capital at Richmond, Virginia, and 
with Jefferson Davis as President. The war began early in 1861. 



340 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

The Northern states were all Federalist. They bent their ener- 
gies to the restoration of the Union, the overthrow of the doctrine 
of state sovereignty, and the establishment of the principle that the 
supreme power rested in the central government. Great Britain 
ordered all her subjects to maintain a strict neutrality. This 
aroused fierce indignation in the North. It was looked upon as 
a practical recognition of the South as a belHgerent power. In 
Northern eyes the Southern Confederacy was not an independent 
power, to be recognized by other powers, but a mere ba'nding 
together of rebels. As such, said the North, it was to be chas- 
tised by the central government, and ignored by outside powers. 
The anger of the North was still further excited by the fact that 
England seemed in sympathy with the seceders. British vessels 
were very active in running the blockade of Southern ports ; and 
British harbours were much used by Southern cruisers. The 
truth of the matter was that, while the British government and 
probably the masses of the British people desired the North to 
win, there were many who could not but see a poetic justice in 
this rebeUion. The South was but urging the claim on which the 
Thirteen Colonies had so rudely insisted in 1776. The sons of 
loyalists were inclined to ask why, if the Thirteen Colonies might 
secede from their motherland, might not the eleven Southern 
states secede from the Union? In some parts of British North 
America, particularly in Halifax, the feeling of sympathy for 
the South was frank and strong. But, on the other hand, from 
the upper provinces went many sons of Canada to fight in the 
Northern ranks. 

In the first year of the war the colonies were awakened to a 
sense of their own weakness. Trouble arose between Great Brit- 
The Trent ^'^^ ^^^ America, and it looked as if there would be 
^^^"' an appeal to the sword. It came about in this way. 

The Confederacy was sending two commissioners. Mason and 
Slidell, to England, to plead the cause of the South, and to seek 
recognition of their country as a belligerent power. They took 
passage on the British mail-steamship Trent. On November 8th 



COALITION. 341 

the American man-of-war San Jacinto, commanded by Captain 
Wilkes, stopped the Trent on the open seas, boarded her, and 
arrested the two Southern commissioners. Over this grave breach 
of the Law of Nations the North was much elated, and Captain 
Wilkes became a popular hero. But Great Britain was indignant. 
She demanded that the distinguished captives should be instantly 
given up. She threatened war if there was any delay. She began 
pouring troops into Halifax. But meanwhile the American gov- 
ernment came to its senses ; and Mason and SUdell were quietly 
given up. This was due to Lincoln's firm wisdom. The troops, 
landing in Canada, found dances and fair dames instead of battles 
awaiting them. The danger was passed ; but it had opened the 
eyes of men to the need of putting Canada in a position of 
defence. The British government made large expenditures on 
provincial fortifications, and militia bills of importance were pressed 
through certain of the Provincial Parliaments. At the same time 
the death of Prince Albert and the mourning of the Queen created 
a wave of sympathetic loyalty (1861). But in the two Canadas, 
though the people were full of patriotic zeal, the even balance 
and eager strife of parties prevented the passing of the militia 
bills. Reform governments and Conservative governments suc- 
ceeded each other on most trivial grounds of difference. Party 
passions seemed to rule the hour. Stable government was a 
thing forgotten. And England was righteously displeased at the 
defeat of the Militia Bill. 

At this crisis the great Reformer, George Brown, came to the 
rescue. He proposed a coalition between the parties, and the 
formation of a new ministry. The offer was accepted, coalition in 
and the noise of pohtical wranghng sank to peace tiieCanadas. 
(1864). The administration ^ set itself to prepare a scheme of 
Federation which should provide for the admission of the other 

1 In this illustrious ministry we find the names of John A. Macdonald, George 
E. Cartier, George Brown, Oliver Mowat, Sir Etienne Tache, A. T. Gait, D'Arcy 
McGee, William McDougall, Hector Langevin, J. L. Chapais, James Cockbum, 
and Alexander Campbell, 



342 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

provinces whenever it should suit them to come in. A Confedera- 
tion of the whole was in their hearts, and they were debating as 
to whether the time was ripe for approaching the Maritime Prov- 
inces with the scheme, when an event which took place in Prince 
Edward Island decided them. A Federal union, not of the two 
Canadas alone but of all the provinces of British North America, 
became the immediate object of their efforts. 

92. The Charlottetown Conference, Quebec Conference, and 
Quebec Resolutions. — The event so fraught with destiny to 

Canada was the Charlottetown Conference, which met 
The scheme 
of Maritime on the first day of September, 1864. This Confer- 

Union. . -^ ^ 

ence, curiously enough, was the outcome of action 
taken three years before by Howe, who was presently to contra- 
dict himself by becoming the great opponent of Confederation. 
As far back as 1854, he had outdone the Conservative leader, 
Johnstone, in eloquent support of the union project. In 1861, as 
leader of the Nova Scotia government, he had brought in and 
carried unanimously a resolution favouring Confederation. This 
idea changed soon to what seemed the nearer and more practical 
one of a legislative union between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
and Prince Edward Island. The scheme of welding these three 
into one wide and influential province proved attractive to the 
people, and for a time " Maritime Union," as it was called, 
eclipsed the more magnificent but remoter scheme of Confedera- 
tion. 

Delegates from the three provinces were appointed to meet at 
Charlottetown and discuss Maritime Union. Each province sent 

five delegates. Nova Scotia's delegation was chieflv 
The Char- ^ ° 

lottetown Conservative, a Conservative government then being 
Conference. , . ^ 

in power, and it Avas led by Howe's indomitable rival. 

Doctor Tupper ; but one of its members was a distinguished 
Reformer, Adams G. Archibald. New Brunswick's was a Reform 
delegation, its chief being the Hon. S. L. Tilley, leader of the 
New Brunswick government. The delegation from Prince Edward 
Island consisted of the leading members of the provincial govern- 



THE CHARLOTTETOIVN CONFERENCE. 343 

ment, which had carried important reforms in the island province. 
It was led by the premier, Colonel Gray. Thus it will be seen 
that this conference was not an affair of party, but of patriotism. 
Where the island capital sits secure at the head of her sunny and 
windless haven, the delegates met. The wide streets, prosperous 
dwellings, and green luxurious gardens of Charlottetown, per- 
petual reminder of her old name. Port La Joie, formed a fitting 
environment for the counsels of unity and peace which were 
destined there to prevail. The delegates met, as we have seen, 
to discuss Maritime Union. But meanwhile the coalition gov- 
ernment of the two Canadas, standing on the high platform of 
Confederation, had heard of the conference, and asked leave to 
be present at it. Assured of a welcome, six of the chief minis- 
ters of Canada set out in the government steamer Victoria for 
Charlottetown. These pioneers of destiny were of diverse party, 
creed, and race. There were the old rivals, now allied to so great 
an end, George Brown and John A. Macdonald. There were 
George Etienne Cartier, the French Catholic ; A. T. Gait, the 
English Protestant of the Eastern Townships ; William McDougall, 
the Scotch Protestant ; D'Arcy McGee, the Irish Catholic. 
When these delegates met the conference, in the opening days 
of that month which is loveliest in the Garden of the Gulf 
(September i, 1864), the enthusiasm and faith Avith which they 
advocated their cause worked a speedy result. Before the plan 
of Confederation, now presented so nearly and clearly that there 
was no shutting one's eyes to its brilliance, the lesser plan of 
Maritime Union paled into extinction. But the Maritime dele- 
gates had been sent to discuss only Maritime Union. Nothing 
could be done, therefore, but weigh interests, strengthen sympa- 
thies, cultivate mutual trust and esteem. It was resolved to hold 
another conference at once, to consider terms of Confederation. 
Quebec was appointed the place of meeting, and the Charlotte- 
town Conference dissolved. The island capital, therefore, may j 
justly claim to be called the cradle of our union. 

From Charlottetown the Canadian delegates made a rapid tour 



344 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, stirring public interest by 
their speeches, warming public sentiment by their enthusiasm. 
Everywhere they were welcomed, and feted, and cheered forward 
in their purpose. On their return to Ottawa arrangement was made 
for the new conference. On October loth, the men who were to 
give form and substance to the aspirations of our people, who were 
to fashion a nation out of our scattered colonies, came together in 
that ancient capital which has so long guarded our gates. 

The Quebec Conference met on October loth. It must be 
counted one of the chief events in our history. The date, the 
The Quebec far-reaching results, the names of those who took 
Conference. ^^^^ -j^ -j.^ should be written on Canadian hearts in 
letters of gold. Its vast significance will impress us more and 
more as we recede from it, and as its effect upon the history of 
the world begins to show. The delegates numbered thirty-three ; 
and their names cannot be written in a footnote. From the 
Canadas came Sir Etienne P. Tach6, John A. Macdonald, George 
Brown, William McDougall, George E. Cartier, Alexander T. 
Gait, Oliver Mowat, Hector Langevin, T. D'Arcy McGee, A. 
Campbell, J. C. Chapais, J. Cockburn. From Nova Scotia came 
Charles Tupper, Adams G. Archibald, W. A. Henry, R. B. Dickie, 
and J. McCuUy. New Brunswick sent Samuel Leonard Tilley, 
John M. Johnson, Peter Mitchell, Edward Chandler, Charles Fisher, 
Judge J. H. Gray, W. H. Steeves. Prince Edward Island sent 
Colonel John Hamilton Gray, E. Palmer, T. H. Haviland, W. H. 
Pope, G. Coles, E. Whelan, and A. A. Macdonald. From New- 
foundland came F. B. S. Carter and Ambrose Shea. Though some 
of the provinces were thus more largely represented than others, 
this made no difference in the voting, which was carried on by 
provinces. Each delegation had one vote, and the provinces 
were thus on a footing of perfect equality. The meetings of the 
conference were held in the Parliament House, built over the ruins 
of the old Chateau St. Louis. There shone forth the broad sa- 
gacity and tireless tact of Macdonald, the shaping force of Tupper, 
the Scottish fire and pertinacity of Brown, the eloquence of Cartier 



THE QUEBEC RESOLUTIONS. 345 

and McGee. The deliberations lasted eighteen days, and resulted 

in the adoption of Seventy-two Resolutions. These famous 

Resolutions, with some changes, form the basis of the British 

North America Act, which is Canada's constitution. Their 

great work done, the delegates made a tour through Upper and 

Lower Canada, meeting fervent welcome on all sides. 

93. How the Quebec Resolutions were received. — A grave 

task now awaited the Fathers of Confederation. This was to 

secure the acceptance of the Quebec Resolutions, bv 

^ ^ ' -^ The attitude 

the provinces concerned and by the home govern- of the differ- 

ent provinces 

ment. J he home government met them with the to the Quebec 

f. , , . . , , , Resolutions, 

warmest lavour and expressed its strong wish that the 

scheme should be accepted by the provinces. But the provinces 
were much divided on the subject. Newfoundland positively re- 
jected the whole scheme, and has not hitherto seen fit to reverse 
her decision. Prince Edward Island rejected it, only to accept it 
a few years later when its success had been proved. Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick hesitated. The Canadas accepted with in- 
stant zeal. There were reasons for this difference. Beside the 
Great Lakes and along the St. Lawrence valley the subject had for 
some time been in the mouths of the people. -It had been 
thoroughly threshed out. It was seen to be the simplest way out 
of some pressing evils. In February of 1865 the Quebec Resolu- 
tions were brought before the Legislature, and, after prolonged 
debate, were carried by an overwhelming majority. At the close 
of the session Messrs. Macdonald, Brown, Cartier, and Gait went 
to England to confer with the home government. 

But in New Brunswick the scheme now met with a rude set- 
back. In March of the same year was held a general election, 

and the scheme of Confederation was put before the 

'- The Resolu- 

people at the polls. It was so mixed up, however, tionsinNew 

• . , J 1 1 • , , Brunswick 

With other and local questions that the party support- and Nova 

1 A A • ^ r 1 Scotia, 

mg It was beaten. An Anti-Confederate government, 

under the leadership of Albert J. Smith, came into power. New 

Brunswick having thus spoken against the scheme, the Nova 



346 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Scotia government was discouraged, and the question was not 
brought forward in the Legislature. But meanwhile the people 
of New Brunswick had been reconsidering ; and the more they 
thought of it the more friendly they became to it. The attitude 
of the Americans was making plain the need of strength and union 
in the colonies. The urgent desire of the home government, 
too, was not without effect. Seeing this change in public feehng, 
the Legislative Council of New Brunswick passed a resolution in 
favour of Confederation. This resolution was accepted by Gov- 
ernor Gordon in a strong address. The words of the governor 
being directly contrary to the advice of his ministers, the minis- 
ters resigned. Mr. Tilley and other Confederation leaders were 
then called to form a new government. Another general election 
was held, and the Anti-Confederate party was overwhelmed 
(1866). The change of feehng in New Brunswick brought im- 
mediate action in Nova Scotia. Doctor Tupper, leader of the 
government, brought up in the Legislature a resolution in support 
of Confederation. It was carried by a heavy majority, but only 
on the understanding that the plan should be changed to secure 
better terms for the Maritime Provinces. This action of the 
government, in committing the province to Confederation with- 
out giving the people a chance to vote upon it, made the people 
indignant. It was felt that in a case of such vast importance 
a general election should have been held, to give the electors a 
chance to say what they wanted. Thus the seeds of future dis- 
content were sown on good ground, where they afterwards sprang 
up and bore fruit in agitations for Repeal. The anger of the 
people directed itself against the way in which Confederation was 
carried. But in the fierce heat of party conflict this feeling be- 
came distorted, till it took for a time the shape of hostility to the 
measure itself. 

In the same year in which the Nova Scotia Legislature ac- 
cepted Confederation, the project was brought before the Legis- 
lature of Newfoundland in the governor's speech. The address 
of the House in reply confessed that the advantages of Confed- 



AMERICAN HOSTILITY. 



U7 



eration were " so obvious as to be almost necessarily acknowl- 
edged." At the same time it declared that as far as Newfound- 
land in particular was concerned, the desirability of „ . ^ ^ . 
^ ^ ■' Rejected la 

the measure was doubtful. A little later the whole Prince Ed- 
ward Island 
project was laid on the shelf. Prince Edward Island, andNew- 
^ ■' ' foundland. 

through her Legislature, was more emphatic in her 

rejection of the scheme ; but not long afterwards, as we shall see, 

she opened her ears to the charming of her Confederate sisters 

and suffered herself to be led into the union. 

When these four provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova 
Scotia, and New Brunswick had decided for Confederation, they 
sent delegates to England to get an Act of Union through the 
Imperial Parliament. But the Opposition in Nova Scotia had 
found a leader, strange to say, in Howe, who went to London to 
argue against the act. The great orator put forth his utmost 
eloquence, his most appealing arguments ; but his ancient an- 
tagonist, Tupper, overmastered him. The keen weapons of his 
own logic and wit were used against him. The Imperial govern- 
ment was against him. The protest of Nova Scotia was passed 
over, and Parliament went on to frame the Act of Confederation. 

94. Confederation accomplished. — In these years of destiny, 
1864, '65, '66, and '67, while the Dominion was struggling to its 
birth, there were forces acting outside to give it un- 

' ° ^ Hostility of 

willing aid. The Northern states grew more and theAmeri- 
more hostile. In the American Civil War the prov- 
inces had remained strictly neutral ; but Canada was naturally a 
refuge for Southern sympathizers who had fled out of the North- 
ern states. A lawless band of these refugees, gathering on the 
St. Lawrence frontier, made a raid across the border into Ver- 
mont and plundered the town of St. Albans. Fierce was the 
indignation of the Northerners \ and their own exploits of a like 
kind during the Papineau and Mackenzie rebeUions were con- 
veniently forgotten. To prevent a repetition of such outrages, 
the Canadian government called out a force of militia to patrol 
the borders. About this time the American government gave the 



348 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

provinces notice of its intention to terminate the Reciprocity 
Treaty (1864). Seeing the hour at hand of their triumph over 
the South, the Americans felt ready to vent their wrath against 
England. So long as the colonies chose to remain British, they 
should be made to feel the weight of America's displeasure. At 
the same time, it was expected that for the sake of America's trade 
they would consent to annexation. The withdrawal of the Reci- 
procity Treaty was intended to show the provinces what they 
would lose by remaining loyal, what they would gain by deserting 
their allegiance. In the hope of heading off Confederation, 
Congress even passed a bill providing for the admission of the 
provinces, on most favourable terms, as four new states of the 
American Union. Foreign bribes proved no more effective than 
foreign threats. They only drew the provinces together. An 
earnest effort, however, was made to prevent the abrogation of 
the treaty. To this end a trade convention was held at Detroit, 
where delegates from the chief Provincial and American cities 
met and talked over the situation. Howe's eloquence took the 
gathering by storm, and for a time it looked as if Reciprocity 
might gain a new lease of life. But Howe's influence failed to 
reach the American government. A continuance of the treaty 
was offered, indeed, but on such terms as the provinces could not 
accept without humiliation, and in 1865 it came to an end. The 
provinces were thus driven to look toward each other and toward 
Europe for new avenues of trade ; and the cause of Confederation 
was immensely strengthened. 

As soon as the war between North and South was ended, and 

the seceding states crushed, the Americans began to press Eng- 

land for damages on account of the injury done to 

''Alabama American commerce by the Alabama and other 

Claims." ^ 

Southern cruisers. This claim was made on the plea 
that the cruisers had been fitted out in British ports. On a 
like plea Canada might have demanded damages for American 
breaches of neutrality during the troubles of 183 7-1838. Great 
Britain denied having countenanced the fitting and arming of 



THE FENIAN INVASIONS. 349 

Southern cruisers. She therefore resisted.the American demands ; 
and for some years the '■^Alabama Claims," as they were called, 
remained a sore question, which might at any time lead to war. 
This threat, also, worked strongly for Confederation. 

But Canada found yet another enemy to thrust her on to great- 
ness. In America there was a strong organization known as the 

Fenian Brotherhood. It was started in the first place 

^ The Fenians, 

by hot-headed Irish patriots who dreamed of reveng- 
ing upon the hated Sassenach the wrongs which their country had 
endured. At the close of the War of Secession a host of despera- 
does, too lawless to settle down to the tasks of peace, were let 
loose upon the country. These flocked into the ranks of the 
Fenian Brotherhood, and proposed to conquer Canada as a first 
step toward freeing Ireland. To conquer Canada seemed so easy, 
that the Fenian leaders, in anticipation, parcelled out our choicest 
lands among themselves. On St. Patrick's Day of 1866 the Fenian 
invasion was looked for, and the Canadian militia stood in arms 
along the border. But the weather was bad, and the invasion 
was therefore postponed. In the following month these ruffians 
threatened the New Brunswick borders, and troops were marched 
to the defence of St. Andrews and St. Stephens. The danger 
melted away ; but it meant many votes for Confederation. 

At the same time, under the very noses of the American 
authorities, and while all America was in virtuous wrath over the 
Alabama dispute, the Fenians were drilling and arming their 
regiments in the American border towns. From Sault Ste. Marie 

to the Gulf, a wave of indignation at such inconsistency „ , 

' ° ^ Repulse of the 

swept over the British provinces. At the end of May Fenian inva- 

^ sions. 

a band of nine hundred Fenians, under one Colonel 
O'Neil, crossed from Buffalo to Fort Erie and advanced to destroy 
the Welland Canal. At the village of Ridgeway they were met by 
a detachment of Canadian militia. The ground was one where of 
old the militia of Canada had many times rushed to victory against 
great odds. But on this occasion our soldiers added small lustre 
to their laurels. After a two hours' skirmish they retreated in- 



350 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

gloriously, leaving the Fenians masters of the field. The victors, 
however, hearing of the approach of some British regulars, fled in 
haste to the shelter of Buffalo. Other Fenian raids, along the St. 
Lawrence border, were easily repulsed. Four years later, when 
Confederation was well established, this same Colonel O'Neil again 
led his Fenians against our border, this time attacking Quebec. 
He was routed ignominiously (1870). In the following year he 
made a similar attempt on Manitoba. But the American officer 
in charge of Fort Pembina, near the line, knew his duty toward 
a friendly nation. With a body of United States troops he fol- 
lowed the ardent O'Neil across the border, and arrested him. 
Thus the last Fenian invasion ended in farce. 

And now our scene shifts again to London. The provincial 
delegates, meeting in the Westminster Hotel, reviewed minutely 
Passing of the Quebec Resolutions. The chief changes made 
Norto"*^^'^ were in favour of the Maritime Provinces. In Feb- 
America Act. j-^^j-y ^-j^g complete scheme of Confederation was 
brought before the Imperial Parliament. It was warmly sup- 
ported by the leaders of all parties. It passed without amend- 
ment, and was signed by the Queen on March 29, 1867. This 
Act is known as the British North America Act.^ At the same 
time a bill was passed authorizing the Imperial Parliament to 
guarantee a Canadian loan of ^3,000,000, for the construction of 
what was an essential to Confederation, the long-desired inter- 
colonial railway. 

The Constitution of Canada is based on that of the mother 
country, with some points borrowed from that of the United 
The form of States, and some new features arising from the novelty 
government. ^^ ^^^ situation. The government of the Dominion 
is made up of four elements: (i) the Governor-General; (2) the 
Executive Council, or Cabinet; (3) the Senate'; (4) the House 
of Commons. These are really equivalent to three, — King, 
Lords, and Commons ; for the Governor- General and his Cabinet 
are counted as one factor. 

1 See Appendix A. 



THE CANADIAN HOUSE OF COMMONS. 351 

(i) The Crown is represented by the governor-general, whose 
functions are as strictly limited as those of the sovereign in Great 
Britain. He is appointed by the Queen, and holds xheGover- 
office for five years. He is the commander-in-chief ^or-Generai. 
of the naval and military forces in Canada; he appoints the 
lieutenant-governors and the judges ; he has authority to com- 
mute the sentences of the court. He acts upon the advice of 
his ministers, but has power to withhold his assent to any bill. 

(2) His advisers, called "the Cabinet or Execu- 

.• ,, 1 • 1 r T^ T ., , The Cabinet, 

tive, are thirteen members of Parliament, responsible 

to the people, holding office only so long as they hold the peo- 
ple's confidence. 

(3) The Senate is not elective, but is made up of life members 

nominated by the Governor-in-Council. In the constitution of 

the Senate it was sought to make it correspond with 

TT r T T r •, 1 ■ The Senate, 

tne House of Lords, as far as was possible in a purely 

democratic country like Canada. The Senate, at the time of 

union, consisted of seventy-two members, — twenty-four each from 

Ontario and Quebec, twelve each from Nova Scotia and New 

Brunswick. Each senator must be a British subject, must five in 

the province he represents, and must own unencumbered property 

to the value of at least $4000. 

(4) The House of Commons is the direct representative of 
the people. Its members are elected by the • people. They 
serve for a term of five years, unless the House be The House of 
dissolved by the Governor-in-Council in the mean- '^°^'i™°'is. 
time, as frequently happens. If a member be appointed to the 
Cabinet, he resigns his seat and goes before the people for re- 
election. Each member must be a British subject, and hotd 
property to the value of $2500. At the time of union the House 
of Commons was made up of one hundred and eighty-one mem- 
bers, — sixty-five for Quebec, eighty-two for Ontario, nineteen for 
Nova Scotia, fifteen for New Brunswick. It was arranged that the 
representation should be readjusted after each decennial census, 
in order that the principle of representation by population should 



352 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

be clearly recognized. The number of members for Quebec was 
fixed at sixty-five ; and it was arranged that the members for the 
other provinces should vary in such a way that their representa- 
tion should always bear the same ratio to their population as sixty- 
five to the population of Quebec. After the census of 1891 took 
place a readjustment, by which, on the next general elections, held 
in 1896, the House of Commons consisted of two hundred and 
thirteen members, — sixty-five for Quebec, ninety-two for Ontario, 
twenty for Nova Scotia, fourteen for New Brunswick, five for Prince 
Edward Island, seven for Manitoba, six for British Columbia, and 
four for the North-west Territories. 

The union accomplished by the British North America Act is 
a federal, not a legislative union. A legislative union brings 
the uniting provinces or states under a single govern- 
between a ment which manages all their affairs. It obliterates 

federal and _ ° 

a legiaia- the individual provinces or states. A federal union, 

tive union. 

on the other hand, leaves the uniting provinces or 
states with governmental machinery of their own, to manage their 
own local and internal affairs, while establishing one central gov- 
ernment to manage such affairs as concern all the provinces or 
states in common. Under the British North America Act Upper 
Canada and Lower Canada became Ontario and Quebec ; and 
these provinces, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, retained 
their provincial legislatures under the fullest principles of Responsi- 
ble Government. These provincial legislatures, with one excep- 
tion, consisted of the usual three branches, — lieutenant-governor. 
Legislative Council, and Assembly. Ontario alone chose to do 
without the Legislative Council. 

The great difference between the Federal union of Canada and 
Difference that of the United States lies in the one point of 
canTdian*^^ sovereignty. When the American states federated, 
aifd^the^'^^°'^ sovereign power, as we have seen, was supposed to re- 
^derai^° side in the states themselves, and the central govern- 
union. ment gained only such powers as were jealously yielded 

to it by the states. When the British North American provinces 



DOMINION DAY. ■ 353 

federated, the sovereign power, supposed to reside in the Crown, 
was deputed to the central government, and the provinces re- 
tained only such powers as were portioned out to them by the 
central government. The provinces retain the management of 
their own public works, educatioji, primary and local adminish'a- 
tion of Justice, lice^ises, municipal institutions , and direct taxation. 
To the central government at Ottawa belong all such matters 
as trade and commerce, the postal service, the census, military and 
naval defence, fisheries, the coinage, banking, Indian affairs, 
criminal law, appeals, and so forth. 

The British North America Act took effect on the first day of 
July, 1867. The day was observed with joyous festivities through- 
out the new Dominion, and its anniversary was ordained to be 
a public holiday perpetually, under the name of Dominion 
Dominion Day. This is the birthday of Canada. ^^^' 
To true Canadians it must be what July 4th is to patriotic Ameri- 
cans, a day of proud rejoicing. On this day Canada became a 
nation free within itself, and bound to the British Empire by 
a bond of authority so silken that in a quarter of a century it has 
not been felt to gall. The real and binding tie between the 
mother country and her stalwart child, this Canada, is not a tie 
of authority but of sympathy. It is such a tie as Burke desired 
to see between England and the Thirteen Colonies, when with 
anguished eloquence he strove to avert the cruel and bloody 
rupture of 1776. " My hold of the colonies," said the far-seeing 
orator in his speech on " ConciUation with America," " is in the 
close affection which grows from common names, from kindred 
blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are 
ties which, though light as air, are strong as links of iron." 



THIRD PERIOD. 

CANADIAN DOMINION : — EXPANSION AND 
CONSOLIDATION. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

SECTIONS : — 95, the First Dominion Parliament. 96, Nova 
Scotia reconciled. 97, the Red River Settlement be- 
comes THE Province of Manitoba. 

95. The First Dominion Parliament. — The counsels of far- 
seeing statesmen had at last borne fruit in fact. The dream of 
patriots had come true. Out of four weak provinces/ parted by 
Confederated reaches of wilderness and by jealous distrust, had been 
Canada. fashioned, as it were in a day, a stately commonwealth, 

containing within itself all the elements of power and expansion. 
Between the parts of the new organism began to flow, slowly at 
first but with sure motion, the red currents of national life. To 
the eyes of hostile critics the bonds of Confederation seemed but 
temporary and slight. The Dominion, they said, was an idle ex- 
periment. Even they whose zeal had raised the fair structure 
trembled lest it should go to pieces under their fingers like a 
house of cards. Too close they stood to take in all at once its 
massive and enduring proportions. They could not know the 

1 The areas and populations of these, at the time of union, were as follows : — 

Quebec: — area 188,688 sq. miles ; Pop., 1,111,566. 

Ontario: — area 101,733 " " 1,396,091. 

Nova Scotia : — area . . . 20,907 " " 330,857. 

New Brunswick: — area . . 26,173 " " 252,047. 

These figures are those of 1861, on which the Act of Union was based. 

354 



NEW PARTY LINES. " 355 

vital quality of the materials they worked with. For all truly 
great work imagination is necessary, and inspiration, and faith. 
The end, until it is reached, stands veiled in mystery. When the 
air of that first Dominion Day was loud with bells, and cheers, 
and cannons' thunder, which of the most sanguine of those who 
saw their work thus crowned could have guessed that in twelve 
years more their Canada would cover half the continent? In 
those twelve years the area of Canada increased from three hun- 
dred and thirty-eight thousand square miles to three and a half 
millions, an area greater than that of the United States before 
the purchase of Alaska. 

Dominion Day, 1867, ushered in the third period of Canadian 
history, that in which we live. The essential features of this 
period are expansion and consolidation. In the last characteris- 
twenty-five years of Canadian history there has been confedera- 
the vast extension of territory already referred to, tio'iPenod. 
with accompanying growth in wealth and influence. This is the 
first essential feature, expansion. There has also been a steady 
knitting together of the remotest parts of this vast territory in a 
union of increasing strength. This is the second essential feature, 
consolidation. The events, then, which really count in our latter- 
day history are those which touch our expansion or our consolida- 
tion. • The others are mere incidents, to be referred to in passing, 
but not to be confused with rnatters of deeper import. 

The first governor-general of the Dominion of Canada was 
Lord Monck, whose tact, discretion, and obedience to the princi- 
ples of responsible government did much to help on the new 
order. The Hon. John A. Macdonald, who had coalition of 
done more than any other man to bring about the ^^^^ P^'^t'es. 
union, was knighted. Immediately afterwards he was called upon 
to form a ministry. Now came a new era in the history of Cana- 
dian parties ; and from Macdonald's action dates the breaking up 
of old party lines, the gradual establishment of new ones. With 
that sagacity which distinguished him, the new prime minister an- 
nounced his policy in the following terms : " I desire to bring to 



356 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

my aid, without respect to parties in the past, gentlemen . . . who 
were active in bringing about the new form of government, who 
used their influence to that end in the different sections of the 
Confederacy. I desire to bring to nriy aid in the new govern- 
ment those men, irrespective of party, who represent the majori- 
ties in the different provinces of the union. . . . And as there 
are now no issues to divide parties, and as all that is required is 
to have in the government the men who are best adapted to put 
the new machinery in motion, I desire to ask those to join me 
who have the confidence and represent the majorities in the vari- 
ous sections, of those who were in favour of the adoption of this 
system of government and who wish to see it satisfactorily carried 
out." Acting on these principles, Macdonald called six Reformers 
and six Conservatives to form with him a Cabinet of thirteen min- 
isters. They were divided as follows : From Ontario, where the 
Reform party had a majority, three Reformers — McDougall, 
Rowland, Blair, and two Conservatives, Macdonald and Camp- 
bell. From Quebec, where the Conservatives had an overwhelm- 
ing majority, four Conservatives — Cartier, Langevin, Chapais, and 
Gait. From New Brunswick two Reformers — Tilley and Mitchell. 
From Nova Scotia, one Reformer and one Conservative — Archi- 
bald and Kenny. In the appointments to the Senate a like rule 
was followed, the first Canadian Senate consisting of thirty-six 
Reformers and thirty-six Conservatives. The whole countenance 
of Canadian politics now changed. The new party, made by the 
amalgamation of Conservatives and Reformers under Macdonald's 
leadership, took the name of Liberal-Conservative ; while those 
Reformers who would not accept the principle of coaHtion formed 
themselves into a constitutional opposition and took the name of 
Liberals. But Liberal-Conservative being a clumsy term, however 
interesting historically, it has for the most part been dropped in 
favour of the nicknames " Tory " or " Lib. -Con." ; while the Lib- 
erals have fallen heir to the old nickname of " Grit." 

That autumn the first elections under the Act of Union took 
place. They were fiercely contested. In Ontario George Brown 



THE FIRST DOMINION PARLIAMENT. 357 

and the Reformers attacked the prmciple of coalition. The Re- 
formers who had joined hands with Macdonald in the new min- 
istry were called political traitors. There was no Anti- 

•' ^ The first 

Confederate party m Ontario. In New Brunswick and Dominion 

elections 

Nova Scotia the battle was fought on the lines of Con- 
federation or Anti-Confederation. In Ontario, Quebec, and New 
Brunswick, the Macdonald government was supported by a great 
majority, and the principles of both Confederation and coalition 
upheld beyond dispute. But in Nova Scotia it was far otherwise. 
The people were indignant because Confederation had not been 
laid before them at the polls. They listened, therefore, to the 
eloquence of Howe, and an Anti-Confederate wave swept over 
the province. Of all the Confederate candidates not one escaped 
defeat but the indomitable Tupper, who was left standing like a 
tower in defiant solitude. 

On the 7th November, 1867, was opened at Ottawa the first 
Parliament of the Dominion of Canada. Lord Monck, in his 
speech from the throne, dwelt upon the splendid 

possibilities of the union, and the sympathy extended Dominion 

. , , , ^^^ / \^ . Parliament, 

to it by the mother country. He foretold a time 

(less remote than he imagined) when the young Confederation 
should reach from ocean to ocean. In this session practical legis- 
lation left little time for party strife. Measures were taken to 
begin the intercolonial railway. Matters of customs, excise, 
postal service, and the like, pressed for attention. The question 
came up of what was called Dual Representation. By the new 
constitution there was nothing to prevent members of the Domin- 
ion Parliament from also holding seats in the provincial legis- 
latures. A bill to put an end to this was brought in, but afterwards 
withdrawn. Dual Representation prevailed in Ontario and Que- 
bec for some years. In the Maritime Provinces it never existed, 
the provincial legislatures having passed bills to prevent it. 

Perhaps the greatest event in this first session was the move- 
ment for annexing the North-west. This showed the temper, 
the vigorous self-reliance, the imperial ambition of the young 



358 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Confederacy. The chief mover was the Hon. Wilham McDougall, 
already known for his interest in North-west matters. An ad- 
The move- dress to the Throne was passed, praying that jurisdic- 
anneVthe ^^'^^ ^"^^^ ^^ Hudson Bay Territories, comprising all 
North-west. ^^ North-west and Rupert's Land, should be trans- 
ferred from the Imperial to the Dominion government. One of 
the various reasons urged in support of this step was that the 
Hudson Bay Company did not govern its vast territories in a way 
to favour their development. Another was that if Canada did not 
annex the territories, the United States, still land-hungry after 
swallowing up Alaska, would make an effort to do so. This action 
of Mr. McDougall's, as we shall see, was destined to bear great 
fruit. 

96. Nova Scotia reconciled. — The second year of Confedera- 
tion was marked by a deed which sent a thrill of horror through 
Assassina- ^ Canada. This was the assassination of Thomas 
tionofMcGee. D'Arcy McGee, the patriotic statesman whose elo- 
quence and whose influence with his fellow- Irishmen in Canada 
had done so much to bring about the union. McGee had spoken 
late in the House, urging patience and conciliation toward the anti- 
Confederates of Nova Scotia, who were clamouring for Repeal. 
It was two o'clock in the morning, April 7th, when the House 
adjourned. The streets of Ottawa were silent with new snow. 
As McGee stooped to fit the latch-key to his door, the murderer 
stepped up behind him and shot him through the head. There 
were many members of the Fenian Brotherhood scattered through 
Canada, particularly in Montreal, and the deed was straightway 
laid to their charge. McGee, once connected with the United 
Ireland movement, had been fearless in his denunciation of the 
Fenians. He had threatened them with the exposure of certain 
secrets which he had in possession ; and he used all his influence 
to prevent his countrymen from joining them. Ominous were the 
Fenian threats, but he disregarded them. His courage cost him 
his life. No less than ^20,000 was offered in rewards for the ap- 
prehension of the murderer, and at length a Fenian by the name 



NOVA SCOTIA RECONCILED. 



359 



of Whelan was arrested, convicted, and hanged for the crime. 
The name of McGee shines upon our annals as that of a patriot- 
martyr. But the blood of martyrs is not shed in vain. The death 
of McGee drew province, race, and party more closely together in 
the bonds of a sympathy that now began to call itself national. 

Meanwhile Repeal was the word that filled the air in Nova 
Scotia. Though Howe and his followers had spoken at Ottawa 

with comparative moderation, not so temperately did 
1 1 ., 1 1 r , • • Repeal agita- 

they speak on the stump and before their own constit- tion in Nova 

. Scotia, 

uencies. The new Assembly at Halifax passed reso- 
lutions demanding leave for Nova Scotia to secede ; and Howe 
led a delegation to lay these resolutions before the Throne. Dur- 
ing their absence, however, the feehng against the union began to 
cool. Soon the Hand that guides the destinies of nations inter- 
vened to make the heart of Nova Scotia beat more kindly toward 
her sister provinces. The fishing-season of 1867 had been one of 
terrible failure in Nova Scotia, and the winter of 1868 found her 
fishing-population all but starving. The rest of Canada hastened 
to the rescue. From every town and city flowed the stream of 
succour. Money and provisions poured into the suffering districts. 
And under this generous warmth much of Nova Scotia's bitterness 
died away. 

In London Howe's arguments got scant favour from Parliament. 
The demand for Repeal was peremptorily dismissed. On the 
return of the delegates to Halifax they felt the neces- ^ova Scotia 
sity of accepting the union. Sir John Macdonald, reconciled, 
with other Confederation leaders, visited Halifax in the autumn 
and tried, though in vain, to bring about a reconciliation. But 
soon afterwards Howe publicly declared that it was no use making 
any further demand for Repeal. He advised his province to give 
up the idea of secession, and seek simply to gain better terms. 
Then began the " Better Terms " negotiations, carried on by Howe 
and the Dominion government. Some of Nova Scotia's claims 
were shown to be just. Finally the Dominion government agreed 
to become responsible for a much larger portion of her debt than 



360 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

had been contemplated in the Act of Union, and also to pay her 
a subsidy of ^82,698 a year for ten years, to compensate for cer- 
tain losses of revenue. These terms being accepted by the prov- 
ince, Howe on his part accepted Confederation, and also a seat 
in the Dominion Cabinet (1869). He was bitterly assailed for 
this ; but he carried his province, Howe was essentially a leader 
of men, a swayer of men's hearts. When he took the stump the 
people were for him, however reason and logic might chance to 
be against him. In this same year the Newfoundland Legislature 
decided for Confederation, and sent Messrs. Shea and Carter to 
Ottawa to discuss terms. But an election was held, and the meas- 
ure was buried under such a mass of unenlightened votes that it 
could not lift its head again for years. The people of the Ancient 
Colony had heard that Confederation would mean more taxation ; 
and hence their wrath. 

About this time one Mr. Chandler, of the state of Michigan, 

moved in the American Senate that England be asked to hand 

over Canada in settlement of the "Alaba??ia Claims." 

The Amen- 

cans poach Canada retorted by a large claim against the Ameri- 

on the Cana- •' . 

dian fish- can government on account of aid and encouragement 

eries. '^ ° 

given to the Fenians. Senator Chandler's proposal was 
but another of the good offices rendered by America in stirring up 
a national sentiment in our young Confederacy. American fisher- 
men, too, helped to awaken this needed sentiment in our breasts. 
They persisted in poaching on the rich shore fisheries of the 
Maritime Provinces and the Gulf. The Americans had forfeited 
the right to these fisheries when they abrogated the Reciprocity 
Treaty. Canada, for a time, was unwilling to assert her rights 
too roughly, and merrily the poaching went on, to the grievous 
loss of Canadian fishermen. It aroused a deep resentment. The 
few annexationists in Canada were quickly changing their minds. 
The visit of Prince Arthur, in this same year, called forth such 
universal demonstrations of loyalty, as left no doubt as to the 
temper of the people. This did much to correct the lingering 
idea of the Americans, that Canada was ready to drop into the 



THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES. 36 1 

lap of the republic. On every hand events conspired to strengthen 
the bonds of Confederation. 

97. The Red River Settlement becomes the Province of Mani- 
toba. — In 1870 the negotiations for taking in the North-west 
were crowned with success. The great obstacle to Canada pur- 
overcome was the Hudson Bay Company, which North-west 
claimed the whole region. This claim Canada pro- HudsonBay 
tested against, on various grounds which we need not Company, 
enter into. Finally, however, it was found simplest and fairest 
to buy out the company's claims. Under pressure from the 
Crown, the company gave up to Canada its ancient proprietor- 
ship of the North-west Territories, its ancient monopoly of the 
North-west trade. It received in return a cash payment of 
;^30o,ooo, a twentieth of all lands surveyed in the territory for 
future settlement, and certain guarantees against excessive taxa- 
tion. It retained its trading-posts, its influence with the natives, 
its special facilities for the fur-trade. The Hudson Bay Company, 
though no longer a sovereign power in disguise, is still a potent 
factor in North-west hfe, and the greatest emporiums of com- 
merce in the North-west are marked by the significant letters 
H. B. C. 

The imperial heritage to which Canada thus fell heir is one 
so vast that nations might be carved from it and the loss scarcely 
noticed. Its lakes are inland seas, its rivers miarhtv 

Cha.ra.cteriS" 

floods that open up the inmost recesses of the land, tics of the 
The Mackenzie River, traversing but an out-of-the- 
way corner of this region, yet runs a course of two thousand miles. 
The Saskatchewan rolls its spacious current thirteen hundred miles, 
not to find the ocean, but to lose itself in Lake Winnipeg, in the 
very heart of the continent. In the valley of this river alone a 
population greater than that of the British Isles might well support 
itself. From Lake Winnipeg westward to the Rocky Mountains 
stretch the most exhaustlessly fertile wheat fields of North America, 
with a summer temperature that ripens the choicest quaUty of grain. 
These endless plains of black soil seem destined to be the granary 



362 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

of the world. Over them floats an atmosphere bracing, electrical, 
full of vigour. In the more easterly sections the cold of winter 
is intense, but so dry and still is the air that the low temperature 
causes Httle discomfort. Men do not realize that the thermometer 
is lower than in the wet and windy east. Spring comes as it were 
in a night, and the interminable plains are adorned with flowers. 
Summer flames swiftly through the wide and gleaming sky, and 
the crops rush to ripeness. Almost fabulous are the harvests of 
hay and roots and grain. As the plains unfold toward the foot of 
the Rocky Mountains they grow less fitted for wheat, but unsur- 
passable for the grazing of flocks. The cUmate is^ so tempered in 
winter by the balmy " Chinook " winds streaming in from the 
westward, that the sweet and abundant grasses keep green all 
winter, and cattle need no housing. The isothermal lines sweep 
so far north that the temperate chmate of Nova Scotia is found in 
the valleys of the Peace and the Athabasca ; and farming is by no 
means unfruitful along the upper waters of the Mackenzie itself. 
Rivers and lakes abound with fish. Beneath the surface of the soil 
are vast coal deposits, petroleum fields stretching far beyond the 
Arctic Circle, and many other treasures of the mine. High pla- 
teaus of rock and torrent and stunted forest lying east and north 
of the prairie regions are stored with gold and iron, copper and 
nickel. Here are possibilities so boundless, resources so various 
and vast, that the imagination is dazzled in the effort to foretell 
their future. 

Such was the North-west Territory, which for generations had 

been represented to the world as an Arctic barren. Beyond the 

scattered posts of the great fur-trading company it was 

hostility to occupied by roving Indians, and by the twelve thou- 

v3.I13.dcl> 

sand inhabitants of the Red River settlement, nearly 
ten thousand of whom were half-breeds. As soon as the Territory 
was handed over to Canada by the Hudson Bay Company, Canadian 
surveyors flocked in to lay out roads, and lots, and townships. But 
now Canada found that the great company was not the only factor 
to be dealt with. The settlers of Red River were makinsf them- 



RED RIVER REBELLION. 363 

selves heard in angry protest. There were several reasons for 
their anger. They claimed that their interests had not been pro- 
tected in the transfer. They objected that they were being thrust 
into the ignoble position of the colony of a colony. The half- 
breeds resented the presence of the Canadian surveyors, who 
regarded them as an inferior race. They foresaw heavy taxation 
in all this surveying and proposed road-building. The half- 
breeds were themselves divided, some being of Scottish origin, 
English speech, and Protestant creed, while others were in speech 
and origin French, in creed Roman Catholic. Each of these 
two sections was afraid lest union with Canada should give the 
other some advantage. But these were not all the elements of 
disturbance. Among the influential pure whites, two thousand 
in number, there were many Canadians who did their utmost for 
union. But there were also Fenians, who dreamed childish dreams 
of a republic in the Red River valley. And there were American 
immigrants whose hearts were set on annexation. 

Hotter and hotter grew the excitement, and the Hudson Bay 
officials, not ill-pleased, took no steps to allay it. The faction 
that came to the front was that of the M^tis, or French The Red 
half-breeds, under their fanatical leader, Louis Riel. uon^reaks' 
When news came that McDougall was on his way to °"*" 
Fort Garry as governor, Riel and his followers rose in open 
rebellion (1869). They seized Fort Garry and estabhshed 
what they called a " Provisional Government," with Riel as presi- 
dent. When Governor McDougall, travelling to his new charge 
by way of Minnesota, reached the boundary-line, he was stopped 
by the half-breeds and forbidden to enter the territory. The 
English-speaking inhabitants now took alarm, and spoke for union ; 
but Riel had grown too strong for them. McDougall, thundering 
out of the Minnesota wilderness, ordered the rebels to lay down 
their arms. His order was laughed to scorn. 

Louis Riel was the son of a full-blooded white father and a 
half-breed mother. He was educated at Montreal for the priest- 
hood, but returned to Red River without takina; orders. As a 



364 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

boy he was noted for bodily vigour, and for his influence over 

his fellows. He was a fluent orator, a fair scholar, and skilled in 

playing upon the hearts of his countrymen. His pre- 

andthemur- tensions were as boundless as his ambitions, and he 

der of Scott. ' 

seems to have been m some degree the victim of self- 
delusion. Had he not been so vainglorious as to think that he 
could set law and order and the Canadian government at naught, 
he would probably now be honoured as the champion of North- 
west liberty ; for many of the claims which he made for his 
countrymen were such as justice could not ignore. But with 
insane impatience he snatched at the sword. There was no one in 
the settlement ready or strong enough to oppose him. The wild 
fanatic arrested those Canadian settlers who would not bow to his 
sway. Then came the cHmax of his madness. Among his pris- 
oners was a resolute young immigrant from Ontario, by the name 
of Thomas Scott, who had faced Riel with contemptuous defiance. 
Furious at this, Riel determined to strike terror into the hearts of 
the Canadian party. Young Scott was court-martialed for treason 
against the provisional government, and condemned to death. 
No argument, no appeal, no picture of the inevitable conse- 
quences, could turn Riel from his purpose. On the 4th of March, 
1870, Scott was taken out and shot like a dog in the snow, under 
the walls of Fort Garry. It was not an execution, it was a mur- 
der, and a peculiarly brutal one. At news of it a cry of ven- 
geance went up from the east. The volunteers sprang to arms. 
Of the thousands offering themselves seven hundred were ac- 
cepted. They formed, with five hundred regulars, the Red River 
Expeditionary Force, which in hot haste started for the scene. 

Immediately after the murder of poor Scott, Archbishop Tache, 
who was much beloved by the Metis, arrived at Fort Garry, to act 
as an informal mediator between Ottawa and the rebels. He 
brought an invitation for the half-breed delegates to visit the capi- 
tal, and also a promise of pardon for those who had taken part in _ 
the rising. This promise of pardon, however, had been issued 
before the murder of Scott, and Canada held that it could not 



MANITOBA ORGANIZED. 



365 



apply to his murderers. The good Bishop, seeking peace, was 
rather lavish of his pardons ; and out of it came trouble by-and- 
by. But his presence, together with the news that troops were 
coming, had an instant effect. Riel became a model of loyalty. 
The Queen's Birthday, even, was celebrated with zeal, and Riel 
began to look askance at his Fenian secretary, O'Donohue. 
Delegates from the provisional government were sent in haste to 
Ottawa, to confer upon the terms of union. 

The Red River Expedition was led by Colonel Garnet Wolse- 
ley, now commander-in-chief of the British army. Being a miU- 
tary force, the expedition could not pass through Manitoba 
United States territory. It took the toilsome route of organized, 
the old fur-traders, up Lake Superior, and through five hundred 
miles of difficult wilderness. While it was on the way,^ the 
Manitoba Act was passed, and Manitoba was received into the 
Confederation as a full-fledged province (1870). By the provi- 
sions of the act no less than one million four hundred thousand 
acres of land were reserved for the settlement of half-breed claims, 
and many of the demands for which Riel had raised such outcry 
were granted without dispute. 

Soon afterwards (August, 1870), the Red River Expedition, 
emerging from the wilderness, arrived at Fort Garry. There was 
nothing for it to do. At the first sound of its bugles. The rebellion 
Riel and his fellows had vanished. The rebeUion P^t^own. 
was at an end. Riel fled into exile in the neighbouring states, to 
return years later and work further mischief. Many of Wolseley's 
volunteers settled in the new province, to be an element of sturdy 
loyalty. Under land laws of the most liberal type immigrants 
flocked in by thousands. Like magic uprose our stately prairie 
province. The old Hudson Bay post by the turbid stream of 



1 It was in the spring of 1870, while Riel was still rampant at Fort Garry, that 
the Fenians made their renewed attempts on our frontiers. These raids have 
been described in an earlier paragraph. It is worth while to note, by the way, that 
the Fenians so far dishonoured that much-loved emblem, the Shamrock of Ireland, 
as to inscribe it on the rebel flag which flew over the murderers of Scott. 



366 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Red River grew into the busy city of Winnipeg, with its thronged 
and imposing streets, its hum of modern activity. The first gov- 
ernor^ of the new province was Adams G. Archibald, of Nova 
Scotia, who arrived close on the heels of Wolseley's expedition. 

And now, there being no hope of a new Reciprocity Treaty, 
Canada set about protecting her fisheries from American poach- 
The imperial ^rs. She fell back on the provisions of the treaty of 
dmwnTrom i^iS. A patrol fleet was fitted out, and the poachers 
Canada. vvere warned. Vessels disregarding- the warning were 

seized, condemned in the courts,. and sold. Fierce were the 
threats of the Americans because Canada would no longer be 
robbed. Under such influences our Militia Bill was passed ; and 
seeing Canada fairly ready to provide for her own defence, Great 
Britain withdrew her troops. During 1868 and 1869 there had been 
nearly sixteen thousand British regulars in Canada. These were 
reduced to less than two thousand. The massive fortifications of 
Halifax remained in imperial hands, and that city was made the 
British naval and military station for the North Atlantic. All 
other fortifications, with arms and military stores, were given up 
to Canada. The ancient fortress of Quebec passed into the care 
of Canadian troops. Young Canada was thus made more self- 
reliant, and taught to cling less closely to the maternal apron- 
strings. 

The year 1870 was made further notable by a succession of 
local calamities. Great fires ravaged the upper provinces. Que- 
bec city lost four hundred houses in one visitation. 
Calamities. ■' t , 1 ■ ,• 

Ottawa was so threatened by a hungry encircling 

horde of bush-fires, that for protection the Rideau Canal was cut, 
and the low lands all about laid under water. A strange blow fell 
on Nova Scotia, in the loss of the great Inman steamer City of 
Bosto7i. Sailing from New York on January 25th, she called at 
Halifax and took on board a number of Nova Scotian passengers. 



1 McDougall had been made governor, not of a province, but an unorganized 
territory. 



LOCAL CALAMITIES. 367 

On the 28th she steamed out of Halifax harbour, — and from 
that day to this no tidings of her have come to the ears of men. 
Later in the year the coasts were visited by a terrific tidal wave 
and hurricane, which strewed the shore with wrecks and drowned 
the marshes. As if war, conflagration, and ruin by sea were not 
enough, on October 20th the land was shaken by an earthquake. 
This jarred men's nerves, but did no serious damage. And the 
troubled year came to an end in quiet. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

SECTIONS: — 98, British Columbia joins the Dominion. 99, 
Provincial Affairs. 100, Prince Edward Island joins the 
Dominion. Change of Government. 10 i, the National 
Policy. The Fisheries Commission. 

98. British Columbia joins the Dominion. — The year 1871 
brought another addition to the Confederated Provinces of Can- 
British sda, and fulfilled the dream of the fathers of Con- 
ioinsthe\;on- federation by extending Canada from ocean to ocean, 
federation. British Columbia came into the Dominion. In the 
previous year a resolution favouring union had been passed by 
the British Columbia Legislature, under the influence of the pro- 
vincial governor, Mr. Antony Musgrave. This was the same judi- 
cious statesman* who, when governor of Newfoundland, had so 
nearly succeeded in bringing the Ancient Colony into Confedera- 
tion. Delegates were sent to Ottawa to confer on terms of union. 
During the session of 187 1 the bill for the admission of British 
Columbia was hotly debated in the Canadian Parliament, and 
finally carried. The chief condition on which the- Pacific province 
came in was the building of a railway to connect her with the 
eastern provinces. This transcontinental line was to be begun 
within two years, and completed within ten years, from the date 
of union. As we shall see, these conditions proved too hard, and 
the railway was not finished till five years later than the time 
agreed upon ; but the splendid faith which could undertake, the 
splendid vigour which could achieve, so vast an enterprise with 
such slender resources, are enough to justify the most boundless 

368 



BRITISH COLUMBIA. 369 

confidence in our country's future. The imperial dimensions 
which Canada attained on the accession of British Columbia drew 
the eyes of the world upon her, and men grew interested in the 
young giant thus suddenly springing up in the spacious north. 

The new member of the Dominion was a vast realm, of greater 
area than Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick all 
taken together. It has been already referred to as xhecharac- 
a sea of mountains. But the torrents that run down th."new °* 
from her snowy peaks bear sands of gold, her ledges p'^°^i°'=^- 
and her cHffs are veined with all the precious metals. There is 
coal, too, of the highest quality and in lavish abundance. The 
steep slopes are clothed with magnificent forests, able to supply 
the lumber-trade of the world. Bays and rivers swarm with fish. 
The great resources, therefore, of British Columbia are her mines, 
her fisheries, and her timber. But she is not poor in cultivable 
land. The great delta of the Eraser River is a garden, where 
flourish in profusion the choicest products of the farm. There 
are valleys scattered over the mainland and Vancouver Island 
which afford millions of fertile acres, under a climate of match- 
less mildness, with a winter that is like perpetual spring. And in 
the north of the province, about the sources of the Peace River, 
stretches a region which must soon attract a great farming popu- 
lation. At the time of union the province had about thirty-six 
thousand inhabitants, of whom less than half were white. But 
the union brought a new era. Wealth and population at once 
leaped forward. Towns and cities sprang up as at the waving of 
an enchanter's wand. The wand that wrought this magic is the 
great railroad whose history we shall take up in later paragraphs. 

With Canada's vast expansion came the need of a prompt settle- 
ment of her disputes with the neighbouring republic. This was 
gained by the Treaty of Washington. There were AHighCom- 
damages for the Fenian raids to consider, — and the Seets'at 
fisheries dispute, — and the question of the naviga- Washington, 
tion of the St. Lawrence, — and British Columbia's uncertain south- 
ern boundary. Great Britain seized the occasion for a settle- 



370 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



ment of the "Alabama claims." A joint High Commission was 
agreed upon by Great Britain and the United States. Canada 
was represented on the board by Sir John Macdonald. On Feb- 
ruary 27, 1871, the commissioners opened their court at Washing- 
ton. As might have been foreseen, Canada was the one whose 
interests had to suffer most for peace' sake. 

The Washington Treaty dealt with four points of dispute : 
(i) the ownership of the island of San Juan ; (2) the boundaries 
Subjects dis- between Canada and Alaska; (3) the admission of 
commls^^*^^ Americans to Canada's inshore fisheries and to the 
sioners. navigation of the St. Lawrence system ; (4) the 

claims of America on account of damage done to her trade by 
the Southern cruiser Alabama; and the counter-claims of Can- 
ada on account of the Fenian raids. The San Juan question 
has been already explained. The question of the boundary 
between British Columbia and Alaska, particularly as to the width 
of that narrow strip which, from latitude 54° 40' northward, fences 
British Columbia from the sea, was referred to arbitration. But 
the settlement, made on insufficient data, was not to prove final. 
In later years, when the discovery of gold in Alaska brought 
the usual inrush of population, it was found that some of the 
mines were on territory whose ownership was uncertain. New 
surveys became necessary, and the end is not yet. 

In regard to the fisheries dispute, an agreement was come to 
for a term of twelve years. It provided that fish and fish oil 
The Washing- from either country should be admitted duty free to 
ton Treaty. ^j^^ markets of the other. As the Canadian fisheries 
were vastly the more valuable, it was agreed that for the privilege 
of sharing them the Americans should pay Canada a lump sum, 
the amount of which should be determined by another commis- 
sion. The Americans were admitted on even terms to the navi- 
gation of the St. Lawrence, and of the canals of the St. Lawrence 
system ; while Canadians were to share in the navigation of the . 
St. Clair Canal, of the rivers Yukon, Porcupine, and Stikeen in 
Alaska, and also, for twelve years, in the navigation of Lake 



THE WASHINGTON TREATY. 



371 



Michigan. The Americans were allowed the privilege of floating 
lumber from the Maine woods down the river St. John to the sea. 
Provision was made for the free transmission of goods in bond 
through either country. In other words, it was agreed that goods 
intended for the American market might pass through Canadian 
territory without paying toll to the Canadian custom house, and 
similarly, goods intended for the Canadian market might pass 
through American territory without being subject to American 
duties. 

The Alabama claims were referred to arbitration. The arbi- 
trators met at Geneva in the following year, 1872, and decided 
that Great Britain should pay the United States the sum of 
^15,500,000. This heavy award Great Britain at once paid 
over. As for Canada's Fenian claims, Great Britain insisted on 
their withdrawal, and they were therefore withdrawn. But this 
aroused such indignation in Canada, that, to quiet the storm, 
England agreed to guarantee a Canadian loan of ^2,500,000 
in aid of the proposed railway across the continent, and for the 
extension of our canal system. 

Thereupon Canada reluctantly accepted the treaty. By this 
treaty the Americans got practically all they demanded 

•' a i- J J Dissatisfac- 

of Canada, while Canada's demands were coolly thrust tion of 

T 1 Canada. 

aside. But, as a leading French Canadian journal 

remarked, " we ought perhaps to be thankful that they asked no 

more." 

99. Provincial Affairs. — At this time arose a difficulty between 
Ontario and Quebec. When the two provinces entered Confedera- 
tion they had a large debt which was common to both. Dispute 
Part ofthis the Dominion government agreed to assume, tari^and '^' 
the balance to be divided between the two provinces. Q^^^^*^- 
The division was left to three arbitrators, one appointed by 
Quel^ec, one by Ontario, and one by the Dominion government. 
But the two provinces differed so widely on the subject (a differ- 
ence of several millions), that the Quebec arbitrator withdrew, 
and the Quebec Legislature refused to be bound by the award of 



3;2 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



the others. The question created an angry debate in the Federal 
Parliament, and was at length referred for settlement to the law- 
courts. 

In 187 1 was taken the first Dominion census. It gave Canada, 

exclusive of Manitoba and British Columbia, a popu- 
The first , . . ^ X- 1 

Dominion lation of 3,433,000.^ British Columbia added thirty- 
six thousand, and Manitoba eighteen thousand. 

The Maritime Provinces at this time received a stimulus in the 
opening of the European-and-North-American Railway between 
The Chicago St. John and Bangor. In October of this year the 
^^^- neighbouring republic was visited with the most ter- 

rible conflagration of modern days. The city of Chicago was 
all but swallowed up in a vortex of flame. One hundred and 
fifty thousand people were left homeless. Canada came forward 
with prompt sympathy. Old grievances were forgotten. Swift 
relief trains, laden with provisions and clothing, sped forward to 
the scene. The gift of Canada to Chicago amounted in money 
value to over a miUion dollars. 

In New Brunswick a question came up which tested the fairness 
of the Dominion government. The Legislature of New Bruns- 
TheNew vvick passed a new school law, introducing a liberal 
schooiLaw system of free schools, but making all public educa- 
dispute. ^JQj^ non-sectarian. The Roman Catholics urged that 

their contributions to the school fund should go to the support of 
schools in which the children should receive definite instruction 
in the principles of their church. They claimed that they should 
not be taxed to support institutions which were of no use to them. 
They said they would be put to the expense of supporting schools 
of their own, while paying at the sarne time for the education of 
their neighbours. With most of the Protestant churches, on the 
other hand, the free school system was very popular. They were 
willing that in the schools their children should receive merely 



1 Ontario, 1,620,851; Quebec, 1,139,119; Nova Scotia, 387,800; New Brunswick, 
285,594- 



LORD DUFFER IN. 373 

their secular education, and look for religious instruction to their 
homes and their Sunday-schools. When the school law was 
passed in the provincial Legislature, the minority appealed to 
the Dominion government to disallow the bill, on the ground 
that it violated certain provisions of the British North America 
Act. The government refused to disallow it, holding that the 
matter lay entirely within the powers of the provincial Legislature. 
The question was appealed to the courts, and finally to the Privy 
Council of Great Britain, where the New Brunswick School Law 
of 187 1 was declared constitutional. 

As we have seen, British Columbia had joined the Dominion on 
condition that a transcontinental railway should be begun within 
two years of the union. In 1872, therefore, Sir John First steps 
Macdonald began to move in the matter. CapitaUsts bunting^of 
were soon interested in the scheme. Two great com- continental 
panics were formed, bidding against each other for R^ii'^^y- 
the right to build the railway. One of these, with headquarters 
at Toronto, was called the Inter-Oceanic ; the other, organized 
by Sir Hugh Allan, with headquarters at Montreal, was called the 
Canada- Pacific. Both companies were duly incorporated ; and 
Parliament empowered the government to contract with either 
company, or with a new one, for the construction of the road. 
The terms, as to cash subsidy, land grants, privileges, and so 
forth, were laid down by Parliament, but great freedom of action 
was left to the government. 

In 1872 there came to Canada as governor-general one who 
did much to awaken national sentiment and to endear his office 
to the people. This was the Earl of Dufferin. The 

, , Lord Dufferin 

same year that brought Lord Dufferin, brought news comes to 

•^ ' o Canada. 

that our Canadian riflemen at Wimbledon had de- 
feated the crack shots of Great Britain and captured that coveted 
trophy, the Kolapore Cup. 

The new governor-general had no sooner entered on his duties 
than he was called upon to dissolve the House. A general elec- 
tion was held that autumn. Sir John Macdonald's government 



374 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

was sustained, though with a reduced majority. It met with 
reverses in Quebec, and defeat in Ontario ; but in the Maritime 
Provinces its gains were so great as almost to counterbalance 
these losses. In Nova Scotia the change of feeling was most sig- 
nificant, as showing how thoroughly the province had accepted 
Confederation. Whereas in 1867 she had elected but one mem- 
ber favourable to union, now she elected but one member in oppo- 
sition to the union government. Manitoba and British Columbia 
elected none but government candidates. 

100. Prince Edward Island joins the Dominion. Change of 
Government. — In the session of 1873 it was enacted by Parlia- 
A motion in nient that the Dominion elections should be carried 
Imperial O" by secret ballot, for the better prevention of brib- 

Federation. ^^^ ^^^ election riots. During this session it was 
moved by Mr. Wallace, member for Albert, that Canada should 
make an address to the Throne praying for a federation of the 
empire. The motion called forth some important expressions of 
sympathy, but was not pressed to a vote. Canada was not 
inchned to take up so tremendous a project ; but she went on 
vigorously with the work of her own expansion. The island prov- 
ince of the Gulf, repenting of her reserve, now came into the 
Dominion. 

As we have seen, the most pressing question in Prince Edward 
Island, running like an angry nerve all through her history, was the 
Prince Ed- question of the ownership of the land. When she 
jofns the1?on- entered Confederation, the Dominion appropriated 
federation. ^8oo,ooo for the purpose of buying out the proprie- 
tors. Two years later the long sore was finally healed. The land 
passed on liberal terms into the hands of those who tilled it. This 
new member of the Dominion brought in an industrious and 
thriving population of ninety-four thousand. Canada took over 
the sinuous narrow-gauge railway which forms a sort of spinal 
column to the province, and also undertook to maintain steam-, 
boat connection between the island and the mainland. 

The spring of 1873 was darkened by the loss of two of the most 



THE PACIFIC SCANDAL. 



375 



eminent sons of Canada. Within a few days of each other died 

the ffreat French Canadian statesman, Sir George 

*= ' =" Deaths of 

Cartier (May 20, 1873), and the great Nova Scotian cartierand 

orator, Joseph Howe (June i, 1873). Howe had 

been, for a month only, lieutenant-governor of his native province, 

of whose history he had made no small portion. 

What is known as the Pacific Scandal (1873) is one of the 
most striking incidents in the parhamentary history of Canada. 
It is an event of party, rather than of national signifi- xhe Pacific 
cance. The first mutterings of the storm were heard ^'^^'^^^i- 
in April. In the beginning of the year the government, finding 
itself unable to decide between the claims of the Inter-Oceanic 
Railway Company and the Canada- Pacific Railway Company, and 
also unable to procure a satisfactory union between the two com- 
panies, chartered a new one for the work. This was incorpo- 
rated as the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Its president 
was Sir Hugh Allan, the most successful capitalist and financier in 
Canada, the head of the great Allan fine of steamships and of 
many other institutions which aided the progress of the Dominion. 
The stock of the company was divided so that all sections of the 
country, from Halifax to Victoria, should have an interest in it. 
About five-thirteenths were held in Ontario, four-thirteenths in 
Quebec, and one-thirteenth each in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
Manitoba, and British Columbia. In April Mr. Huntington, mem- 
ber for Shefford, arose in the House and accused the government 
of having sold the charter to the Canadian Pacific Railway Com- 
pany in return for large sums of money received from Sir Hugh 
Allan to aid in carrying the late elections. Mr. Huntington stated 
that he had evidence to substantiate this grave charge. He 
moved for a committee to investigate it. The motion was treated 
as one of want of confidence, and voted down. But the govern- 
ment could not allow itself to rest under such an accusation. A 
few days later Sir John Macdonald himself moved for a commit- 
tee of inquiry. A bill was passed to enable this committee to 
examine witnesses under oath. But after it had sat for a time the 



3/6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

bill was disallowed by the Imperial Parliament, as lying beyond 
the powers of the Dominion Legislature. Thereupon the com- 
mittee adjourned till it could receive new instructions from the 
House, which had itself adjourned. 

Great party bitterness was displayed in the debates which this 
matter gave rise to. During the summer party feeling ran high. 
Important private documents, telegrams, and correspondence 
were published. The evidence was conflicting, and therefore 
capable of being twisted either way to suit party ends. But as 
the government failed to clear itself instantly of the charge, it 
bore the stigma of the doubt ; and the opposition rapidly gained 
strength. 

Parliament had adjourned at the end of May, to meet again 

on August 13th, not for general business, but merely to receive 

_, „ the report of the committee, which was then to be 

The Macdon- ^ ' 

aid govern- printed and distributed before the next session. This 
ment resigns. 

plan had been accepted on both sides of the House. 

But when August 13th came the opposition, led by Alexander 
Mackenzie, demanded that the governor-general should not pro- 
rogue, but dismiss his advisers and summon a new ministry. Lord 
Dufferin, however, declared that he could not disregard the advice 
of his ministers until they were proved guilty of the charge alleged 
against them, or until he was convinced that they no longer had 
the confidence of the people. The committee ^having no report 
ready. Parliament was therefore prorogued. It still remained open 
for the one party to cry that the government was the victim of a 
conspiracy. It still remained open for the other party to denounce 
two or three leading members of the Cabinet, the prime minister 
in particular, as guilty of shameless corruption. Both parties 
found basis for their views in the evidence which had found its 
way into print. The government, however, was weakened by its 
continued delays, which caused a suspicion that Sir John Macdonald 
was trying to postpone inquiry. Immediately after proroguing, a 
royal commission was appointed by Lord Dufferin to look into the 
whole matter. The commissioners were three, — Judge Polette, 



MACDONALD MINISTRY OVERTHROWN. T^yy 

Judge Gowan, and Ex-Judge Day, chancellor of McGill Univer- 
sity. Mr. Huntington refused to appear before this tribunal. An 
immense quantity of evidence was gathered, but the commission- 
ers reported by merely citing this evidence, without expressing any 
opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the government. Parlia- 
ment met again on October 23, and the commissioners' report 
was at once laid before it by Macdonald. A furious debate fol- 
lowed. From the ministerial bench on the one side, the opposi- 
tion benches on the other, the great party champions crossed 
swords in flaming controversy. Meanwhile the government major- 
ity daily grew less. At length Macdonald saw that when the ques- 
tion came to a vote the vote would be against him. To avoid 
this, which would be equivalent to a verdict of " guilty," the 
Macdonald ministry resigned. Alexander Mackenzie, as leader of 
the opposition, was at once summoned by Lord Dufiferin to form 
a government. When the new ministers weqt before their con- 
stituents for reelection they were almost all returned without a 
contest, so demoralized were their opponents. Owing to the man- 
ner in which the Liberals had come into power, Mackenzie was in 
haste to receive the verdict of the people. With the opening of 
the new year (1874) the House was dissolved, and writs issued 
for a general election. This resulted in an overwhelming victory 
for the Liberals, the people thus declaring their belief in the 
charges brought against the old ministry. 

Mackenzie now found himself with a majority of over eighty at 
his back. Among the new members was no less a personage than 
Louis Riel, who had been elected for the district of Provencher 
in Manitoba. Riel was a fugitive from justice, with TheMacken- 
an indictment for murder hanging over him. But men1:°sup-" 
secretly he came to Ottawa, secretly he took the oath |?^t^major- 
and signed the roll, secretly he withdrew to await the '^^^' 
results. He had not long to wait. In a very few days a motion 
to expel him from the House was carried by a sweeping majority. 
In the following year, being again elected for Provencher, he was 
again expelled. At this time, however, it was decreed that after 



378 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

five years of banishment the amnesty which had been extended to 
the rest of the rebels should be extended also to Riel and his 
so-called adjutant, Lepine. 

During the excitement of the previous year, the Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company had thrown up its charter, and the una- 
voidable delay in commencing the road had caused 
Difficulty -^ . . . 

with British deep discontent in British Columbia. This discon- 
Columbia. , , . , , 

tent was changed to anger and alarm at the acces- 
sion of a ministry whose members had opposed the scheme of 
a transcontinental railway. These feelings were not allayed by 
the first words of the new prime minister on the subject. He 
declared in a speech at Sarnia that while the spirit of the agree- 
ment with British Columbia would be carried out, the letter of it 
would not and could not be. He brought in a bill providing for 
the early construction of parts of the road, leaving other parts to 
be built as the finances of the country would admit. British 
Columbia pressed firmly for her rights, and finally sent a delegation 
to England to lay the matter before the Throne. Lord Carnarvon, 
the colonial secretary, offered to act as arbitrator between the 
province and the Dominion, and both agreed to abide by his de- 
cision. What were known as the " Carnarvon Terms " provided 
among other things that a waggon road and telegraph line should 
be constructed at once along the route to be followed by the rail- 
way ; that a railway between Esquimault and Nanaimo on Van- 
couver Island should be built without delay; and that by the 
last day of December, 1890, the transcontinental line should be 
open for traffic from the Pacific to the western end of Lake Supe- 
rior, where it would connect with American railways and Canadian 
steamship lines. The remainder of the line, around the north of 
Lake Superior, was to be left for construction at some future date. 
Even with this relief the Dominion government delayed the great 
work ; and British Columbia grew more and more wrathful. Mr. 
Mackenzie attempted to evade the terms; and threats of secession 
grew loud by the shores of the western sea. In 1876 Lord 
Dufferin visited the province, and succeeded in soothing the just 



THE NATIONAL POLICY. 



379 



anger of the people, assuring them that Canada would eventually 
fulfil her agreements, but that the government had been checked 
by unforeseen obstacles. A Httle later contracts were awarded for 
certain sections of the road, surveys were pressed forward, and 
some supplies purchased. But the government was in financial 
difficulties, and British Columbia had yet some time to wait ere 
her eyes were gladdened by seeing the railway fairly under way. 

loi. The National Policy. The Fisheries Commission. — In 
1876 the United States held at Philadelphia a great world expo- 
sition, known as " the Centennial," to celebrate the Canada at the 
centenary of their Declaration of Independence. Mr. Centennial. 
Mackenzie was keenly alive to the importance of the occasion, and 
Canada was well represented. In educational exhibits all states 
and nations were outdone by the province of Ontario, which car- 
ried off the international medal for this department, and supplied 
examples to the civiUzed world. This was an object lesson in the 
civilization and intellectual progress of Canada. Our fruit exhibit, 
too, outstripped all rivals, and astonished the many who had 
thought of Canada as a land of semi- Arctic rigour. 

The session of 1876 was made memorable by the introduction 
of a poUcy which two years later was to take Canada by storm and 
carry the Liberal-Conservatives back to power. This xhe growth 
was what is known as the National PoUcy, or, more menrfor^' 
familiarly, the N. P. It was voted down by ParUa- Protection, 
ment, with its large Liberal majority ; but it caught the ear of the 
people. All classes were growing restless under a prolonged 
depression in trade. The revenues were shrinking ; there was a 
yearly increasing deficit ; and men were just in the mood to 
hearken to the pohcy now proposed by Sir John Macdonald. The 
watchword of this pohcy was " Canada for the Canadians." Its 
principle was the fixing of such a tariff as would not only yield a 
revenue but also afford protection to national industries. The 
question which from that day to this has most agitated Canadian 
politics has been the fiscal one. The tariff we must always have 
with us ; but whether it shall be a tariff for revenue purposes only, 



380 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

or one for combined revenue and protection, is a point on which 
the two great parties divide. The tendency of the Liberals, 
allowing for certain restraints, is toward out-and-out free trade ; 
while that of the Liberal-Conservatives is toward frank protection. 
Dominion Day of this year was fitly celebrated by the opening of 
that great bond between the Maritime and Upper Provinces, the 
Intercolonial Railway. 

This period which we have been considering was one of " hard 
times " for almost all the civilized world, a period of commercial 
The St. John panics, lack of enterprise, scarcity of money, dulness 
^^^' of trade. In Canada the depression was increased 

by the blow which now fell on the busy city of St. John. On 
June 20, 1877, the city was almost wiped out of existence by a fire 
second only to that of Chicago. In one night of horror, while 
the red, bellying curtains of the smoke enclosed the doomed city 
and her blazing ships, no less than sixteen hundred buildings were 
devoured, two hundred acres of populous streets laid waste. For 
the sufferers relief came pouring in, from every city, town, and 
village of Canada ; and generous aid was rendered by the mother 
country and the sister republic. Four months later the adjoin- 
ing town of Portland, separated from St. John only by the width 
of a city street, suffered a like fate. But the people set bravely 
to the task of repairing their shattered fortunes ; and St. John has 
risen from her ruins more stately and beautiful than before. 

The Treaty of Washington, as has been said, had provided for 
the appointment of a commission to settle the amount of com- 
pensation due to Canada for the use of her fisheries. The matter 
had not been pressed by Canada, as long as there was hope of a re- 
vival of the Reciprocity Treaty. The government had sent George 
Brown to Washington to seek such a treaty, on the basis of Canada 
giving up her fisheries claim. But reciprocity the American gov- 
ernment would not hear of. The Americans feared that Canada 
would gain too much by it ; and they hoped that without it a 
feeling for annexation would spring up. 

Mr. Mackenzie now determined to assert the rights of Canada. 



THE LETELLIER CASE. 38 1 

In 1877, at his urgent demand, a commission of three members 
were appointed, — one for Great Britain, one for the United States, 
and a third agreed upon by the other two. This impar- 

• 1 ^ • -K IT • -r^ir -r»i* Th6 a.3.\lfSLX. 

tial arbitrator was Monsieur Delfosse, Belgian minis- fisheries 

award. 

ter to Washington. The American commissioner was 
the Hon. E. H. Kellog. In view of the manner in which Brit- 
ish commissioners had so often sacrificed Canadian interests in 
order to favour America, Mr. Mackenzie insisted that the British 
commissioner in this case should be a Canadian ; and Sir Alex- 
ander Gait was appointed to the office. The Canadian claim was 
$14,500,000 for the use of the fisheries for the whole twelve years 
designated in the Treaty of Washington, six of which had already 
passed. The American claim was that Canada had gained so 
many privileges by the Treaty of Washington that she was entitled 
to nothing in return for her fisheries. Finally, after the examina- 
tion of many documents and statistics, it was decided by two of 
the commissioners that the United States should pay $5,500,000. 
The American commissioner protested, and Congress for a time 
refused to abide by the decision. At length, however, the Ameri- 
cans grew ashamed of their attitude. Reluctantly, and with much 
grumbling, the HaHfax award was paid over. 

At this time a troublesome question arose in Quebec. The 
provincial government was Conservative, with a strong majority 
behind it ; while the provincial governor was Letellier LeteUier de 
de St. Just, a prominent Liberal. There soon came ^^-J**®*- 
war between the governor and his ministry. At last the governor 
went so far as to dismiss the ministry, declaring that they had 
slighted his authority, and that they no longer had the confidence 
of the people. He summoned the leader of the opposition to 
form a new government. The Assembly, supporting the old gov- 
ernment, passed votes of censure on the new, and refused to vote 
supplies. The governor thereupon dissolved the House, and 
called for a new election ; and the people supported his arbitrary 
act by giving a large majority to the new government. In the 
Dominion Parliament the opposition, led by Sir John Macdonald, 



382 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

loudly demanded the removal of St. Just. But Mr. Mackenzie 
went warily in the matter. He was by no means ready to approve 
of St. Just's action, but he concluded that it was unnecessary to 
take any notice of it. In this decision he was supported by 
Parliament. In the following year, however, when Sir John Mac- 
donald had returned to power, Governor St. Just was removed 
from office, — but not before the colonial secretary had been 
consulted on this delicate question. 

The great political event of 1878 was a general election. The 
cry of " Canada for the Canadians " proved one to conjure with. 
TheMacken- The idea of a "National Policy," with protection to 
men^Ie-'^' national industries, was alluring to a people just begin- 
feated. vixwg to realize their national existence. The Liberal 

party was amazed to meet with just such an utter overthrow as 
that which they had brought upon their opponents five years 
before. Mackenzie and his Cabinet resigned, and Macdonald led 
his triumphant party back to the government benches. 

That autumn Lord Dufferin left Canada, venerated and re- 
gretted by every one. He had visited every quarter of the 
Dominion : had conciliated every interest ; had taught 

LordDuffenn ^ ^ ^ o 

leaves the remotest provinces to realize and glory in their 

union. The difficult task of filling his place was con- 
fided to Lord Lome and his wife the Princess Louise, a daughter 
of the Queen. 

Soon after the accession of the Macdonald government the 
National Policy was put in force and the duties on imports greatly 

, . increased. That great enterprise which had proved 
The National . 

Policy so disastrous to the Liberal-Conservatives in i87t 

established. . '^ 

again engaged their concern. The Mackenzie min- 
istry had determined to build the Canadian Pacific Railway 
as a government work. At the time of their resignation the 
Pembina branch, and some other sections of the road, were under 
construction. The new ministry reverted to their old policy, and 
in 1880 handed the work over to a company. This company was 
chiefly made up of Montreal capitalists, and was known as the 



SECOND DOMINION CENSUS. 383 

Canadian Pacific Railway Syndicate. Of tlie terms on which the 
syndicate undertook the work, and of the vigour with which they 
carried it to an unparalleled success, we shall read in another 
chapter. 

The second Dominion census was held in 188 1. It showed a 
population of 4,324,810.^ A portion of the gain was due to the 

admission of Prince Edward Island. The most re- 

The second 

markable increase was in Manitoba and the North- Dominion 

census. 

west, where immigration had brought up the total 

population to 122,400. An increase for the whole Dominion of 
over eight hundred thousand in ten years was not rapid, but it 
represented substantial growth. It was entirely made up of choice 
material, and was accompanied by an immensely greater increase 
in wealth. It owed nothing to pauper immigration, and con- 
tained none of the refuse of older countries. 



1 Quebec, 1,359,027 ; Ontario, 1,924,228 ; Nova Scotia, 440,572 ; New Brunswick, 
321,233; Prince Edward Island, 108,891; Manitoba, 65,954; British Columbia, 
49.459 ; North-west Territory, 55,446. 



CHAPTER XXV. . 

SECTIONS : — 102, Causes leading to the Saskatchewan 
Rebellion. 103, the Saskatchewan Rebellion. 104, the 
Canadian Pacific Railway. 

102, Causes leading to the Saskatchewan Rebellion. — As we 

have seen, the suppression of Kiel's rebellion and the organization 
of Manitoba were the signal for an influx of immigration. The 
new province received an Assembly of twenty-four members, and 
a Legislative Council of seven members. This latter body was 
soon abolished, and one House now serves the legislative needs 
of Manitoba. In this she follows the example of Ontario. 

When the rebellion was put down, many of the half-breeds were 
unwilling to submit to the new authority. Sullenly they withdrew 

to the further west, seeking a fuller freedom along the 
Growth of , , . 

the North- shores of the Saskatchewan. In their place came the 
west. ^-11 • • ■ , 

Ontario and other eastern pioneers, journeying around 

by the south of the Lakes and through Minnesota as far as Ameri- 
can railways could carry them. Then their long canvas-covered 
emigrant waggons had four hundred miles to crawl through the 
black mud of the prairie trails, ere they found themselves on those 
exhaustless wheat-lands which their industry was soon to make 
famous. The land was granted on the most liberal terms, one 
hundred and sixty acres free to every homesteader, and as many 
more at a merely nominal price. The immigration from Europe 
was chiefly of northern stock, — Scandinavian, British, German, and 
Icelandic. These latter began to come in 1875, and have found in 
our North-west a far more congenial soil and clime than those of 
their Arctic island. In the previous year came an interesting band 

384 



GROWTH OF THE NORTH-WEST. 385 

of pioneers, the Mennonites of southern Russia. These people 
were originally Germans. They formed a sect akin in religious 
views to the Quakers, and distinguished by the practice of commu- 
nism. For their peace principles they had left Germany and fled to 
Russia. When military service was there demanded of them, they 
took refuge in our North-west, where their doctrines are not inter- 
fered with. They numbered nearly six thousand when they came ; 
and their thrift and industry have made their settlement one of 
the most prosperous in the province. In their footsteps, as to a 
land of promise whose rumour has gone abroad, have flocked 
Scotch " Crofters " from their loved but barren highlands, and 
found on the prairies Highland names and Highland faces to 
welcome them. A few refugees from Poland, a few adventurous 
Hungarians, have also found their way into the North-west ; and 
many French Canadians, having left their native Quebec for the 
factory towns of New England, have sought again the Maple Leaf 
Land and made themselves new homes in Manitoba. 

All this immigration was by no means confined to the new 
province. It spread westward and north-westward. It sought 
the valley of the Saskatchewan, whither the angry half- 
breeds had already shown the way. It sought the chewandis- 
Bow and Belly rivers, even to the foot-hills of the 
Rockies. It sought the Athabasca and the Peace, and wondered 
at the mild skies overhanging these northern floods. For the 
governing of these vast domains, the region was divided into two 
districts. The western district retained the name of the North- 
west Territory, and was given a governor and council of its own. 
The eastern section was called Keewatin, and was attached to the 
jurisdiction of Manitoba. This is still the country of the fur- 
trader, harsh of climate, meagre of soil, but rich in fish and game. 
To protect the settlers, enforce the laws, prevent the seUing of 
whiskey to the Indians, and keep these latter in order, a body 
known as the North-west Mounted Police was established. It 
constitutes a little standing army in the North-west, and has 
earned a splendid reputation for efficiency. 



386 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

A few years later the growth of the North-west Territory seemed 
to call for a further division. In 1882 it was cut up into the dis- 
tricts of Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Athabasca. These 
districts, however, remained under one territorial government as 
before. This government has its headquarters at Regina, in the 
district of Assiniboia. 

But the peaceful growth of the North-west was doomed to a 
rude interruption. The turbulence which had convulsed Mani- 
„, , „ toba in the hour of birth was to break out with two- 

The half- 
breeds and fold violence on the Saskatchewan, and to give Canada 
Indians . . . ' ° 

averse to that most binding of baptisms, a baptism in the blood 
settlement. ° . 

of her sons. The causes which led to the Saskatche- 
wan rebeUion, sometimes known as Kiel's Second Rising, are not 
far to seek. Both Indians and half-breeds were growing yearly 
more discontented, as the herds of bison, on which they had so 
long relied for support, vanished before the rising wave af settle- 
ment. Of old the bison had traversed the plains in such myriads 
that the land would be blackened to the horizon with their furry 
and rolling forms. Indians and half-breeds, mounted on their 
active ponies, unterrified by the tossing horns and savage eyes, 
would hang like wasps to the skirts of the herd, shooting down 
their victims till night stayed the slaughter. The beef thus secured 
so abundantly was dried and pounded into " pemmican." The 
hides were sold to traders and whiskey smugglers, and purchased 
the means for many a wild revel. It was not to be expected that 
the primitive people of the plains should view with love the civili- 
zation which thus checked their license, or the name of Canada, 
which represented that civilization. 

But there were other influences at work. The half-breeds who 
had stayed in Manitoba had received patents securing to them 
^ , . their grants of land. To the half-breeds on the Sas- 

Delay m ° 

granting katchewan these patents had not been issued, though 
title-deeds ^ ' ° 

to the half- they had more than once petitioned for them. As 

breeds. -^ -111 

long as they were without their patents, or title-deeds, 
they dreaded lest their lands should be snatched from them by 



THE RETURN OF RIEL. 387 

speculators, of whom the North-west was full. The land question 
has always been one in which men were quick to draw sword ; 
and the excitement of the Mt§tis, or half-breeds, gradually rose to 
the boiling-point as the Dominion government, too busy or too 
indifferent, continued to hold back the patents. Further, there 
was a general dissatisfaction, in some degree shared by the new 
settlers, over the absence of representation and the autocratic 
powers of the governor. 

As the anger grew, all unheeded at Ottawa, the half-breeds 
turned their eyes toward Riel, who dwelt in exile in Montana. 

That he was powerful they were convinced, for had 

■' Riel returns 

not his rebellion gamed the Manitoba half-breeds the to lead the 

half-breeds, 
land-titles which they wanted ; and had not the gov- 
ernment been afraid to punish him for the execution of Scott ? 
They prayed him to come over arid help them. His time of 
banishment having passed, the old agitator lent an ear to the 
appeal. At first his counsels were moderate. The memory of 
his ancient failure and its consequences stood grimly before his 
eyes. He organized petitions from the inhabitants of the North- 
west. He went to work in a constitutional way ; agitating indeed, 
but only, it seemed, as might any loyal politician. At the same 
time, as his influence over the half-breeds deepened, as his power 
spread abroad over the Indians on their scattered reserves, a 
muttering of secession was heard. Once more the fanatic was 
letting himself be carried away by his vanity. Once more the 
dreams of a madman were inflaming his brain. He began to call 
himself the Liberator. He claimed a divine mission ; and spoke 
confidently of bringing the whole of the North-west under his sway. 
The priests, when they saw that Riel meant violence, threw all 
their influence against him, but he retorted by declaring his 
authority in spiritual matters higher than theirs ; and so enslaved 
were the half-breeds by his eloquence that they listened to him, 
and turned a deaf ear to their Church. People who knew the 
territories took alarm ; but to the older provinces all suggestion of 
danger seemed like an idle tale or party clap-trap. As the spring 



388 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

of 1885 drew near, anxiety deepened on the Saskatchewan. The 
Indians began to leave their reserves. The half-breeds were 
gathering at Batoche, where Riel had his headquarters. In March 
the citizens of Prince Albert organized a volunteer battalion, and 
put their town in a position of defence. Then came the fight at 
Duck Lake. Over Canada flashed the news that Canadian troops 
had been attacked by rebels in the North-west, and beaten back 
with loss. The Saskatchewan rebellion had begun. 

103. The Saskatchewan Rebellion. — Had the rebellion been 
a rising of the half-breeds only, there would have been no great 
cause for alarm. Brave and skilful fighters as these men were to 
prove themselves, they were comparatively few in number. But the 
The Indians real peril of the crisis lay in the Indians. Of these there 
and Riei. ^^y^xt perhaps thirty-five thousand scattered over Mani- 
toba and the North-west. Most of these, notably the great tribes 
of the Crees and the Ojibways, were disposed to be friendly to 
the white men. But they were under a lot of petty chiefs, some 
true, some treacherous ; and all were more or less restless owing 
to the scarcity of food. Further west, towards the Rockies, were 
the warlike Blackfeet tribes, under a redoubtable old chief named 
Crow-foot. With all these tribes Riel had been tampering. He 
told them he would drive the Canadians out of the country and 
set up a new rule, under which, if they would help him, the 
Indians should see a return of their old prosperity. Some of 
the chiefs turned a deaf ear to these blandishments, because they 
realized that the government at Ottawa could reach out a long 
and terrible arm. Others, however, were incUned to go on the 
war-path, and only awaited the encouragement of a rebel success. 
Among these, the most prominent was a turbulent chief named 
Big Bear, who later became infamous for the Frog Lake massacre. 
He had but lately and reluctantly signed the treaty with the gov- 
ernment, and betaken himself, with his band, to the reserves of 
the North Saskatchewan. He acted as Riel's agent among the 
tribes ; and on the first outbreak of hostilities he hastened to 
draw the knife. Another Indian prominent in the rising was 



DUCK LAKE. 389 

Poundraaker, a Cree chieftain of great ability, and more liumane 
than his fellows, who had always been regarded as friendly to the 
whites. It is by no means certain, indeed, that Poundmaker 
would have taken any part had he not been first attacked. But 
the threat that hung over the North-west was that of fire and the 
stalping-knife in every little defenceless settlement, in every 
solitary cabin, — it was all the nameless horrors of an Indian 
war. 

Throughout March events ripened swiftly. In scattered posts 
the stores were seized, and lonely settlers were robbed of arms and 
ammunition. On March i8th Riel, who had heard Rieiinopen 
a rumour that Great Britain was on the verge of a rebellion, 
war with Russia, boldly threw off the mask. In the village of 
Batoche, the centre of extensive Metis settlements, he assumed 
authority and proclaimed his mission. There were a few loyal 
Canadians settled in the village, and these he at once arrested. 
Having superseded the priests, he took the village church for a 
storehouse, and afterwards for a prison. He organized a council, 
sent out scouting parties to capture supplies, and consigned his 
military affairs to one Gabriel Dumont, a brave and skilful buffalo 
hunter whom he made his adjutant-general. The first object 
of Dumont's attention was the little village of Duck Lake, or 
Stobart. 

The two great rivers known as the North Branch and South 
Branch of the Saskatchewan flow together at the Forks, and then 
roll their united current to Lake Winnipeg. For more xhe flght at 
than a hundred miles above the Forks the two streams ^""^^ ^^'^^' 
run nearly parallel to each other, at a distance of twenty or thirty 
miles. On the North Branch, some thirty miles west of the 
Forks, stood the thriving little town of Prince Albert, the centre 
of the white population. Fifty miies above Prince Albert stood 
Carleton, a fortified post of the Mounted Police, with half-a-dozen 
houses grouped about it. On the South Branch, twenty miles 
straight across country from Carleton, lay Batoche, and between 
them the settlement of Duck Lake, a handful of small log-houses. 



390 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



Here were stored provisions, arms, and ammunition, which the half- 
breeds went out to seize. It happened about the same time that 
Major Crozier, the officer in command at Carleton, sent a small 
party in sleighs on the same errand. He had heard of Kiel's 
doings at Batoche and hoped to prevent the supplies from falling 
into rebel hands. As this party approached Duck Lake they 
found the half-breeds already in possession, and were turned back 
by Dumont with threats and indignities. This was on the 26th of 
March. They hastened back to Carleton ; and at once a stronger 
force, consisting of eighty Mounted Police and Prince Albert 
Volunteers, was despatched to avenge the insult. A little way 
from the village they were stopped by Dumont. During the par- 
ley that followed, the half-breeds began occupying the bushes 
on both sides of the road. Our troops at once spread out to 
keep themselves from being surrounded, and in a moment the 
firing had begun. It was sharp bush-fighting, and was maintained 
for nearly an hour. Our men, however, were ill-placed, being on 
lower ground, and they were heavily outnumbered by the foe. 
Seeing himself at such a disadvantage, Crozier ordered a retreat. 
The men flung themselves on to their horses or into their sleighs, 
pausing only to snatch up their wounded, and fled from that cul- 
de-sac where every bush blazed death. The Canadian loss was 
twelve killed and seven wounded. The skirmish had the effect 
of awakening the white settlers to their peril, and convincing 
them of the powers of the half-breeds. It brought many Indians 
out upon the war-path, and exalted the fame of Riel. But at the 
same time it sealed the arch-rebel's doom ; for it lighted a fire in 
the older provinces which only his blood could quench. 

At the first news of Kiel's rising, a small force had been sent 

from Winnipeg to help the Mounted Police. This detachment 

consisted of the . goth Kifles, and a portion of the 

Canadian ^ , , . , 

troops start Winnipeg Field Battery. When the grun tidings of 

Duck Lake thrilled over the wires, the call of the 

government for troops met an instant response. All over Canada 

the volunteers sprang to arms. Within three days of the news, 



POINTS THREATENED BY THE REBELS. 391 

Canadian troops from Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, and 
the martial " Midlands " of Ontario were on their way to the 
front. The leadership of the North-west campaign was in the 
hands of General Middleton, commander-in-chief of the Cana- 
dian forces. The troops were carried to within two or three 
hundred miles of the scene of revolt by the Canadian Pacific 
Railway, then approaching completion. There were long gaps in 
the road, over which our raw battalions marched with an indiffer- 
ence to hardship which won the praise of their veteran leader. 
By April 9th the Toronto troops, consisting of C Company 
Canadian Regulars, the Queen's Own Rifles, the Royal Grena- 
diers, the Governor-General's Foot Guards, and the company of 
cavalry known as the Governor-General's Body Guard, had 
marched to Qu'Appelle, where the Winnipeg contingent was 
awaiting them. Here, as the nearest point on the railway to 
the rebel centre at Batoche, Middleton established his base of 
operations. 

Meanwhile the rebellion was spreading all up the North 
Saskatchewan valley. It threatened three main points, — Prince 

Albert, the town of Battleford at the mouth of Battle 

The chief 

River, and the settlement about Fort Pitt, between points 

threatened. 

Battleford and Edmonton. Prince Albert, in hourly 

dread of a half-breed advance from Batoche, had a garrison of 
Mounted PoHce and Volunteers behind its improvised ramparts of 
cordwood. Battleford was threatened by hungry bands of Stony 
and Cree warriors, whose nominal chief, however, the famous 
Poundmaker, kept strictly to his reserve, some thirty miles dis- 
tant, and professed to lend no aid or countenance to the maraud- 
ers. The town was in two divisions, the Old Town on a low flat 
lying south of Battle River, and the New Town on a shoulder of 
elevated prairie between this ruin and the Saskatchewan. In the 
New Town, within and around the fort, clustered the terrified 
townsfolk, while the savages looteci and burned at will on the 
other side of the river. Closer to the fort they dared not come, 
having a wholesome awe of its one little cannon. The position of 



392 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the settlers was desperate. The telegraph wires being cut, they 
were shut off utterly from the world, and knew not how general 
was the Indian rising, or how soon the savages might come 
down upon them in force. An Indian instructor and a lonely 
ranchman, far out on one of the trails, were murdered in cold 
blood. 

But the crudest tragedy of the whole rising took place near 
Fort Pitt. Just beyond the fort was Big Bear's reserve ; and 
^^ ^ beyond the reserve the little settlement of Frog Lake, 

The Frog •' ^ ' 

Lake mas- in a recess of the Moose Hills. On April 2nd a 

sacre. 

Strong party of Big Bear's braves, under a chief called 
Travelling Spirit, came to Frog Lake. After parleying awhile 
with Quinn, the Indian agent, they disarmed the handful of 
settlers, on pretence of avoiding a quarrel. Suddenly, and with- 
out warning, the now helpless settlers were shot down wherever 
they stood. Two heroic priests. Father Fafard and Father Mar- 
chand, were butchered while striving to defend their flocks. A 
few Wood Crees and half-breeds who were present tried to pre- 
vent the atrocity, but in vain. They succeeded in saving one 
man, the Hudson Bay Company's agent ; and the half-breeds 
gave Big Bear their horses to ransom the women who had 
been captured. These women, with some prisoners afterwards 
taken by Big Bear, owed their lives to the Wood Crees and half- 
breeds, who protected them and treated them with kindness. 
After the massacre the bodies of the victims were mutilated, and 
then thrown into the wrecked houses to burn ; and the Indians 
feasted and danced for three days on the scene of outrage. 

From Frog Lake they moved against Fort Pitt. This post, 
called by courtesy a fort, was but a few log-houses arranged in 

a hollow square, with no ramparts more formidable 
Fort Pitt. 1 . . ^ , 

than an old rail fence. It stood on a plot of meadow 

close to the river. To guard its valuable stores against Big Bear 
and his three hundred braves,''there stood but twenty-three red- 
coated troopers. Their leader was Francis Dickens, a son of the' 
great noveUst. In a stockaded fort this handful of men, skilled 



THE CANADIAN ADVANCE. 



393 



in arms, disciplined, fearless, might have defied even the odds 
that now confironted them. But their position was untenable. 
Nevertheless, so great was the dread in which the Mounted Police 
were held, that Big Bear was unwiUing to attack. His warriors, 
though drunk with blood, held off; and he offered the garrison 
freedom and safety if they would give up the stores and go. The 
reply of Commander Dickens was a curt refusal; and the red- 
skins rushed yelHng to the assault. After a hot fight they were 
beaten back, and held at bay for a time. But at last Dickens saw 
the case was hopeless. Destroying the arms, ammunition, and 
food stored in the fort, he led out his dauntless little company, 
and made good his retreat down the river. 

As we have seen, there were three points to be reached by the 
army of rescue. Middleton divided his force into three columns. 

The western column, under General Strange, was sent 

° The Cana- 

forward to Calgary, thence to march northward to dian troops 

advance in 
Edmonton and operate against Big Bear. Strange's three 

force, numbering between five and six hundred, was 
made up of the 95th (Quebec) Battalion, the 92nd (Winnipeg), 
with a company of Rangers and some Mounted PoHce. The 
middle column, under Colonel Otter, began its overland march 
from Swift Current on the South Saskatchewan. It was made 
up of the Queen's Own Rifles (Toronto), half of C Company 
(Canadian Regulars), B Battery (Canadian Regulars), the Ottawa 
Foot Guards, and fifty Mounted Police. Its strength was 
about the same as that of Strange's column, and the task com- 
mitted to it was the rehef of Battleford. The main or eastern 
column, charged with the rehef of Prince Albert and the subjuga- 
tion of Batoche, was retained by Middleton under his own com- 
mand. It was nearly one thousand strong, and consisted of the 
loth Royal Grenadiers (Toronto), the 90th (Winnipeg), the 
Midland Battalion (Ontario), the Winnipeg Field Battery, A 
Battery (Canadian Regulars), half of C Company (Canadian 
Regulars), Boulton's Horse, French's Scouts, and one gatling gun 
under command of an American officer, Captain Howard. 



394 -^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

From Qu'Appelle, Middleton led the greater part of his forces 
across country toward Batoche. The Midlanders, with the gatUng 
Middieton's ^'^^ suppHes, were sent to Swift Current, there to take 
column. ^]^g steamer Northcote and descend the Saskatchewan 

to a junction with the main column at Clark's Crossing. The 
two hundred miles' march from Qu'Appelle, -through the woody 
covers of the Touchwood Hills and over the toilsome morasses of 
the great Salt Plain, was safely accomplished. Then, after wait- 
ing in vain at Clark's Crossing for the heavily-laden Northcote, 
delayed in the shallows, Middleton moved cautiously toward 
Batoche. He advanced in two columns, one on each side of 
the river. On April 24th he came suddenly on the rebel lines, 
strongly posted in the ravine of Fish Creek. 

The fight at Fish Creek began about nine in the morning. 
The country through which our troops marched was high prairie 
Battle at sprinkled with sad-coloured groves of poplar. It was 
Fish Creek. drained by precipitous ravines, called coulees, from 
twenty to thirty feet in depth, and running at all angles to the 
river. Fish Creek was a small stream, but its ravine, marked with 
a dense growth of cotton-woods and gray willows, was wide and 
tortuous. Under the brink of the steep, Dumont had ranged his 
rifle-pits and posted a strong force. As our right-hand column 
came within fire it broke into cheers, and spread rapidly across 
the hostile front. Company C was first in the fight, and then the 
Winnipeg 90th, whose dark uniforms and dashing courage were 
soon to make them known as the " Black Devils." The men, 
never before within range of an enemy's bullets, bore themselves 
admirably. They exposed themselves with rash valour to their 
unseen enemies, and their loss was heavy. Middleton rode up 
and down his lines as if on parade, a plain target to Riel's sharp- 
shooters. He got a bullet through his cap. About ten o'clock 
the rebels gathered their strength and strove desperately to turn 
our right flank. Here the Canadian loss was heaviest, but after- 
a sharp struggle the assault was hurled back. At last our battery 
got the range of some of the rifle-pits and covers, and silenced 



CUT KNIFE CREEK. 395 

their fire. The troops on the other side of the river, furious at 
being cut off from the fight, were making frantic haste to get 
across in the one scow available as a ferry. As each squad landed 
it rushed forward into the struggle ; but while yet the greater 
number were on the other side, Middleton ordered a general 
advance, supported by the guns of Battery A. The half-breeds, 
after a stubborn resistance, fell back to another ravine a mile dis- 
tant. They had held in check for five hours a greatly superior 
force, and so impressed General Middleton with their fighting 
quahties that he encamped where he was, unwilling to advance 
upon Batoche before the arrival of the Midlanders and the 
gatling. 

The relief of Battleford had been accomplished by Colonel 
Otter's column, after a remarkably rapid march across the two hun- 
dred miles intervening between Swift Current and the cut Knife 
North Saskatchewan. But unhappily it was thought ^'^^^^■ 
well that Poundraaker should be chastised, though the depredations 
at Battleford were almost certainly due to other Indians than his. 
The sagacious Cree chieftain, with some three hundred warriors, 
was on his own reserve, about thirty-five miles away, when Colonel 
Otter led his expedition out of Battleford. The force amounted 
to about three hundred men, including a strong body of Battle- 
ford Rifles who were hungry for vengeance on the redskins. The 
start was made on the afternoon of May ist. On the morning of 
the 2nd, as the sky reddened with dawn, the column plunged into 
a deep gully, crossed the icy current of Cut Knife Creek, and 
began to climb the slope of Cut Knife Hill. Just then the scouts 
who had reached the crest of the hill were seen falling back and 
taking cover. The troops dashed forward. In a moment the 
Indians opened fire in front and on both sides. In another mo- 
ment they had closed in on the rear. Cut Knife Hill was a trap, 
and the Canadian troops had walked into it. But there was no 
sign of panic. The men kept their heads and fought steadily, 
while the artillery knocked over the distant wigwams, and drove 
the enemy from one cover to another. The Indians rushed boldly 



396 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

on the guns, and were with difficulty repelled. All through the 
long morning the Canadians fought under that encircling fusillade, 
till Otter, seeing the uselessness of further sacrifice, decided on a 
retreat. The way was cleared by a charge of the Battleford Rifles, 
and under cover of the guns the column was withdrawn across the 
creek. The retreat on Battleford was not molested. The affair 
of Cut Knife Hill was one in which our troops bore themselves 
like veterans in the face of defeat. But the laurels of it were all 
for Poundmaker, who had outgeneralled his opponents, fought a 
splendid fight in defence of his wigwams, and spared his foes in 
retreat when he might have cut them to pieces. 

One week after the defeat of Cut Knife Hill began the three 
days' battle of Batoche's Ferry, which practically ended the rebel- 
Batoche's ^io"^ (May 9th). Soon after the arrival of the North- 
^®"^' cote with her reinforcements Middleton broke camp 

at Fish Creek and advanced warily on the rebel stronghold. The 
Northcote, barricaded with timbers to play the part of a gunboat, 
was sent down the river to attack the enemy in the rear. Early 
on the morning of the 9th the No?-thcote's whistle was heard 
opposite Batoche, and at the signal our batteries opened fire. 
Some empty houses were knocked to splinters. Suddenly the 
rebels rose as it were out of the ground and poured in a wither- 
ing volley. Our advance had come unawares upon the first 
line of rifle-pits. The whole face of the country was furrowed 
with ravines and honeycombed with trenches. The advance 
was staggered, the line wavered ; but the plucky American, 
Captain Howard, thrust forward with his gatling and played it 
with such deadly effect over the pits that the rebels dared not 
charge. The critical moment passed. Then the red lines set- 
tled down to steady fighting; but those few moments had made 
Howard the hero of the day, and where the angry screech of his 
gatling rang out across the din it stirred the troops like a trumpet. 
All day the fighting went on among the bewildering ravines. It 
was painfully manifest that the half-breeds were not only good 
soldiers but well captained. By evening Middleton had gained 



B A TO CHE'S FERRY. 



397 



not one rifle-pit. The Northcote, after signalling the fight to 
open, had with difficulty saved herself from capture, and with 
riddled sides and demohshed smoke-stack had escaped down 
stream. Our force encamped in hollow square on the battle- 
field, protected by a rude zareba of brushwood and waggons. All 
night the rebels kept up a harassing fire, and under the shrilling of 
rifle-balls the men slept little. At dawn they opened out to the 
attack, but the whole day's fighting resulted in no advance. The 
artillery fire worked havoc in the enemy's more exposed trenches, 
but not a foot did the resolute half-breeds yield. Middleton 
would not risk a charge on the deadly rifle-pits ; and when night 
fell the troops encamped where they had lain the night before. 
But the men by this time were getting restless under the long 
restraint, and when fight began on the morning of the nth they 
were hard to hold in. They pressed close to the pits, firing 
heavily, and toward noon the rebel fire slackened. At last 
Colonels Van Straubenzie, Williams, and Grassett called the 
general's attention to the temper of the men and in vain begged 
permission to charge. Middleton was loth to sacrifice the men 
who would surely fall among the rifle-pits. But on Thursday, 
early in the afternoon, as the troops pressed eagerly forward, the 
officers all at once gave them their head. With cheer on cheer 
the angry battalions broke into a run. The gallant Midlanders, 
under Williams, were first among the rifle-pits ; but Grassett's 
Royal Grenadiers had the centre to storm, and carried it with a 
resistless rush. On the right the rebels scattered like rabbits from 
the trenches before the dark onslaught of the 90th. The pits were 
cleared, the ravines swept clean, and the rebels streamed back 
through the village. By four o'clock the battle was won. Batoche 
was taken ; Riel and Dumont were fugitives ; the insurrection was 
crushed at its heart. A few days later Riel found himself a 
prisoner in his own headquarters. 

There remained little more to do but to go on to Battleford 
and arrest the now submissive Poundmaker, who resolutely averred 
that he had done no wrong. The western column, under Gen- 



398 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

eral Strange, had overawed the Indians around Edmonton, and 

prevented a rising there ; but it did not come in contact with Big 

Bear till May 27th. On this date Strange attacked 

General ■' . ° 

Strange at the warlike savage in a strong position near Fort Pitt, 

Edmonton. 

and was repulsed. Two days later, however, a small 
portion of his force, under Major Steele, inflicted a sharp defeat 
on the Indians. Big Bear's prisoners were rescued and his band 
driven away to the north. Early in July they came back in a 
most submissive mood, Big Bear gave himself up, and the whole 
tribe was disarmed. This meant peace all over the North-west, 
and on July 5th the troops started for home. 

The troops actually in the field, besides those which have been 
already named, were the York and Simcoe Battalion, the 7th 
The troops London Fusiliers, the Montreal Garrison Artillery, the 
engaged. ^^^ Voltigeurs of Quebec, the Quebec Cavalry School 

Corps, the HaHfax Provisional BattaHon, and the 92nd Winnipeg 
Light Infantry. These corps, though not brought under fire, did 
garrison duty at various threatened points, where, but for their 
presence, rebellion would doubtless have burst forth. New Bruns- 
wick and Prince Edward Island were not called on till later in the 
struggle, but when the call came they responded with prompt 
enthusiasm. The New Brunswick Battalion was on its way to the 
field when it was stopped by news that Batoche had fallen, and 
that there was nothing left for it to do. 

That same summer Riel was tried for treason at Regina. The 
trial created intense interest throughout the Dominion, and on 
Execution of both sides were engaged some of the ablest lawyers of 
■ Canada. A strong plea was made for Riel on the 

ground of insanity, a plea which the prisoner himself repudiated 
with scorn. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. In 
September the sentence was carried out, and the unhappy half- 
breed paid the penalty of his crimes. Along with him were exe- 
cuted eight Indians who had been concerned in the Frog Lake . 
massacre. A few others most deeply imphcated in the rising 
were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment. But Gabriel 



RESULTS OF THE REBELLION. 399 

Dumont, preeminent for his bravery as for his guilt, evaded pun- 
ishment by escaping across the border. To such a degree had the 
daring half-breed won the respect of his opponents, that his escape 
was not greatly regretted. 

The results that followed from the struggle were far-reaching. 
While the rebellion was yet in progress, the Dominion government 
appointed commissioners to settle the claims of the Results of the 
half-breeds. It was not long before patents were is- ^^^^^^i°^- 
sued, and the aggrieved settlers secured in the possession of their 
lands. In the following year the districts of the North-west re- 
ceived the benefit of representation at Ottawa, — one member for 
Alberta, one for Saskatchewan, and two for the more populous 
Assiniboia. The rebellion turned men's eyes upon the North-west, 
and with the opening of the Canadian Pacific Railway came a 
swift increase of population. The numbers of the Mounted Police 
were increased from three hundred to one thousand. In Parlia- 
ment a storm was raised over the execution of Riel, which seemed 
for a time to threaten ruin to the Macdonald government. The 
old race-cry, unhappily, was raised in Quebec, and many of the 
French Conservatives, or bleus} went over to the other side, 
because the government had refused to commute the rebel's sen- 
tence. Their desertion was more than made up by the unex- 
pected support of a number of English Liberals. It must not be 
supposed, however, that the French Canadians were at all united in 
condemning the execution of Riel. Out of the fifty-three French 
members who voted on the question, twenty-five voted in support 
of the government. Quebec was not so much at odds with her 
sister provinces in this matter as it has been made to appear. 
Perhaps, when all is said, the most permanent result of the rebel- 
lion was the widening and deepening of our national sentiment. 
In the fight for unity, Canadians from all corners of the Dominion 
fought shoulder to shoulder, learned to honour each other as brave 
men, learned to love each other as comrades. In this quarrel 

1 In Quebec the Liberals are called Rouges or " Reds," and the Conservatives 
Bleus or " Blues." 



400 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

flowed Canadian blood, and the members of the Confederation 
were drawn together more indissolubly than before. 

104. The Canadian Pacific Railway. — The Canadian Pacific 

Railway is an enterprise so essentially national and so imperial in 

its importance, that its completion calls for treatment 

The Canadian ... 

Pacific Rail- in a section by itself. As we have seen, the vast 
way. . 

western expansion of Canada and her access to the 

riches of the Orient were made to hinge upon the building of this 
railway. It constituted a question upon which governments arose 
and fell. The needs which called it into existence were national, 
not commercial ; but true to the maxim that trade follows the 
flag, where it went it created a commerce to which its services 
were necessary. The engine's whistle peoples the wilderness. Of 
all material bonds holding Confederation together it has proved 
the most tangible. It has interwoven the life, trade, interests, 
and sentiments of the older provinces with those of the new. It 
has brought the wheat-fields of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the 
ranches of Alberta, to the markets of east and west. It has 
opened the resources and needs of half a continent to the capital 
and the manufactures of those communities by the sea where 
Canadian life had birth. Though it has grown to be an inde- 
pendent institution, it was the creation of Canada herself; and it 
has stimulated a healthy national pride by proving that Canada 
could carry to success an enterprise more colossal than any other 
people so small and poor had ever dared to dream of. It is no 
exaggeration to say that the daring conception and swift execution 
of this scheme astonished the world, and won Canada a fame that 
generations of slow progress might not have earned. To the 
empire our great railway was a new strength, a new pledge of 
unity. To the imperial station at Hahfax was added an imperial 
station at Esquimalt ; and with the Intercolonial and the Canadian 
Pacific forming a direct path between them, there opened a 
shorter and safer route from Great Britain to Austraha. Thus, 
with the Suez Canal on one side and Canada's Highway on the 
other, was completed the imperial girdle around the world. It is 



THE BUILDING OF THE RAILWAY. 



401 



no longer possible for imperial statesmen to question supercili- 
ously, as they have done, the importance of Canada to the empire. 
As we have seen, the government in 1880 had handed over the 
task of building the Canadian Pacific Railway, together with seven 
hundred and twelve miles of road already completed, 

•' ^ ' The building 

to a syndicate. The heads of this syndicate were of the rail- 
way 
Mr. George Stephen, a merchant of Montreal, who 

afterwards became Lord Mount Stephen, and Mr. Donald Smith, 
a distinguished official of the Hudson Bay Company, who has 
since been knighted for his services to Canada. The terms 
on which the syndicate took up the work were as follows : 
The railway to be completed from Montreal to Port Moody 
by 1891; the company to receive as subsidies ^25,000,000 and 
twenty-five million acres of land in blocks alternating with gov- 
ernment blocks along the railway ; the company to receive all 
land required for stations and workshops, with all the sections 
of the railway built and being built by the government, valued 
at ^30,000,000 ; tjie company to have the privilege of import- 
ing duty free the materials for the road, and to be exempt 
from taxation for twenty years; no competing lines to be built 
in the North-west, south of the Canadian Pacific and connecting 
with American lines, for a space of twenty years. Besides 
these grants and privileges, Canada further aided the company 
from time to time with liberal loans and guarantees while the line 
was under construction. Burrard Inlet was presently substituted 
for Port Moody as the Pacific terminus. The work was pushed 
with such extraordinary vigour that it was completed in half the 
time agreed upon. Construction went on from both ends at once. 
In November of 1885 the two sections, which had been crawling 
toward each other from the St. Lawrence and the Pacific, came 
together at the little station of Craigellachie, beside the Eagle 
River, in the Rockies. Sir Donald Smith drove the last spike to 
unite them. And thus was fulfilled the ancient dream of a North- 
west passage to Cathay. 

The total length of the main line, from Montreal to the Pacific, 



402 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

was twenty-nine hundred and nine miles ; and its extension to 
Quebec, where it joined our other national highway, the Inter- 
colonial, made it three thousand and twenty-five miles. It has 
since extended feeders in every direction, tapping the northern 
centres of American trade, and reaching the Mari- 

Vancouver. . t^. r>.Ti, -,■■,■ 

time Provmces at St. John by a direct hne from 
Montreal. It has also established lines of fast steamships 
on the Pacific Ocean, connecting Vancouver with Japan, Hong- 
Kong, and Australia, and vastly shortening the distance between 
Europe and the East. At the terminus on Burrard Inlet has 
sprung up as if by magic the busy city of Vancouver. In 1885 
the site of Vancouver was an impenetrable forest of the giant 
Douglas pines. In the spring of 1886 there arose a strange 
bustling little, town of wooden houses amid a chaos of huge 
stumps. In July the place was hterally blotted out of existence 
by fire. But almost while the ashes were yet hot began the re- 
building of the irrepressible city. Saw-mills were set at work 
without a roof to cover them. Now this nqietropohs of eight 
years has a population of sixteen thousand, with the dignity and 
substance of a long-established centre. Its handsome buildings 
and well-paved streets cover a soil which has hardly yet for- 
gotten the footprints of the grizzly. But Vancouver is not the 
only town which the great railway has created as in a breath. 
All through the mountains, all along the prairies, are strung little 
settlements growing into villages, villages blossoming into towns, 
so filled with sanguine life that they sparkle like jewels on their 
thread of steel. And so the roaring trains of the great highway 
may be likened to gigantic shuttles darting backwards and for- 
wards across the continent, and weaving into the warp of this 
northern land the bright pattern of our national life. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

SECTIONS: — 105, THE Fisheries Dispute again. 106, Third 
Dominion Census. 107, Affairs in Newfoundland up to the 
Present Day. 

105. The Fisheries Dispute again. — The two great events of 
the last decade of our history were those which we have just been 
considering ; namely, the Saskatchewan rebellion and the comple- 
tion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Other events there have 

been of interest and importance, but none fillina: so 

° Canadian 

large a page m our history. Not without deep mean- boatmen on 
• , , 1 • , . , / , the Nile, 

mg to the whole empire, however, is the fact that 

when General Sir Garnet Wolseley, in 1884, was despatched up the 
Nile with an army to relieve Khartoum and rescue Gordon from 
the Soudan rebels, he took with him five hundred Canadian boat- 
men to help him through the storied barrier of the Cataracts. He 
had not forgotten the skill and daring shown by the Canadian 
troops when he was leading the Red River Expedition through 
the wilderness beyond Lake Superior. The head of this Cana- 
dian contingent, which went to fight in the sands of Egypt the 
battles of the empire, was Colonel F. C. Denison, of Ontario. 
The idea of imperial unity was now springing into active life, as 
was plainly shown by the presence not only of Canadian but also 
of Australian troops under the imperial banners in Egypt. 

Those years of Canadian expansion, 1885 and 1886, saw, how- 
ever, what seemed like a backward movement in Nova Scotia. 
That province had asked for a larger cash subsidy from the 
Dominion, basing her demand on these grounds, among others : 

403 



404 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

that she had not received terms as favourable as those granted to 

certain other provinces ; that her financial position was not as 

good as it had been before the union : that her reve- 
Repealagita- ° . „ . . , 

tioninWova nues were insuincient for the purposes 01 government 

Scotia. ^ . , . I ^ , ^ *=. . 

and mternal improvement ; that the Dommion gov- 
ernment had taken over a large mileage of provincial railroad 
without sufficient compensation to the province ; and that her 
contributions to the Dominion treasury, through custom duties 
collected in her ports by Dominion officials, were greatly out of 
proportion to her receipts from the Dominion. The Dominion 
government having refused the demand, the Nova Scotia Legis- 
lature passed a resolution favouring the secession of the Maritime 
Provinces from Confederation and the establishment of a Maritime 
Union. In case of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island 
proving unfriendly to this scheme, the resolution proposed the 
secession of Nova Scotia alone, and her return to the status 
which she occupied before Confederation. A month later the 
provincial elections were held, and the secession government was 
supported by a very large majority. The real foundation of this 
outburst, of course, was a revival of the old wrath at the manner 
in which Nova Scotia had been taken into the Dominion without 
being properly consulted in regard to so vital a change in her 
constitution. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, how- 
ever, would have nothing to do with this secession scheme ; and 
the island of Cape Breton, strongly Confederate in sentiment, 
began a movement to secede from Nova Scotia and set up as a 
separate province of the Dominion. It is not to be supposed, 
however, that the secession cry was expected to lead to any such 
extreme step as separation. It was rather a most urgent form of 
protest against the Dominion's refusal of better terms. When, 
in the very next year, the Dominion elections were held, Nova 
Scotia returned a large majority in support of the Confederation 
party. A better understanding was presently brought about between 
Ottawa and Halifax ; and the repeal cry was let slip into oblivion.' 
As the reader will call to mind, the clauses of the Washington 



THE FISHERIES DISPUTE AGAIN. 



405 



Treaty relating to the fisheries had settled the matter only 

for twelve years, after which either the United States or Canada 

was to be free to terminate the agreement with two 

° The fisheries 

years' notice. In 1883 the United States gave this dispute 

notice, and the agreement under which the two coun- 
tries had got on so harmoniously came to an end in the early 
summer of 1885. Tlie Americans did this because, said they, 
the privilege of fishing in Canadian waters was not worth the 
price they had been made to pay for it by the Halifax fisheries 
award. Canadian fish were at once shut out by a high duty from 
American markets. At the same time American fishing-vessels 
began a system of deliberate trespassing on Canadian waters. 
The provisions of the treaty of 18 18, known as the Convention 
of London, now came again into force. These prohibited the 
Americans from taking, drying, or curing fish within three miles 
of the British North American coast, certain very Umited portions 
of Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Magdalen Islands excepted. 
There were other sharp restrictions imposed by the treaty of 
1818. But Canada hesitated to assert her rights in the matter; 
and, in the hope of reaching a new and fair agreement with the 
United States, she gave the Americans freely, for the rest of the 
season, the valuable privileges for which they had refused to 
make any return. But the Americans were inexorable. Congress 
would not make a new treaty or accept an International Com- 
mission. Tiiere was nothing left for Canada to do but enforce 
her rights. A fleet of armed cruisers was fitted out to patrol the 
fisheries. A number of New England vessels, caught poaching 
on Canadian waters or evading the Canadian customs regulations, 
were seized, and heavy fines inflicted upon them. The New 
England fishermen, choosing to regard this action as one of war, 
were clamorous in their wrath. Threats of reprisal were loudly 
uttered, and even the government, forgetting that Canada was 
but doing police duty on her own property, talked of cutting off 
all trade intercourse with the Dominion. But wiser counsels pre- 
vailed; and in the year 1887 an International Commission was 



406 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

appointed to clear up the dispute. The commission consisted of 
Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Sackville West, and Sir Charles 
Tapper for Great Britain ; Secretary of State Bayard, Mr. W. L. 
Putnam, and Doctor James B. Angell for the United States. They 
met at Washington towards the end of the year. The agreement 
reached by the commissioners was rejected by Congress; and 
the matter was allowed to lapse into its former dangerous posi- 
tion (iS88). 

The year 1887 was made memorable by two important con- 
ferences. One, known as the Imperial Conference, was held at 
. „ London. Attended by delegates from Great Britain 

Impenal Con- ^ ° 

ferenceand and all her self-governing colonies, and discussing 

Interprovin- 00 ^ o 

ciai Confer- matters of concern to the whole empire, it marked a 
ence. . . . 

Step toward the conscious unity of Greater Bntam. 

Canada was represented at this conference by Sir Alexander 
Campbell and Mr. Sandford Fleming. The other gathering, gen- 
erally known as the Interprovincial Conference, met at Quebec. 
It was made up of the leaders of the governments of those prov- 
inces wherein the reins of power were held by the Liberal party. 
These provinces were Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 
wick, and Manitoba. Prince Edward Island and British Colum- 
bia, being ruled by Conservative governments, were not repre- 
sented. The purpose of the conference was to seek a revision of 
the British North America Act. It represented chiefly the views 
of those who desire to increase the powers of the provinces and 
diminish the powers of the central government. It was the old 
dispute of Provincial versus Federal rights. The resolutions 
passed by this conference looked toward a number of radical 
changes in the Constitution of Canada. One of the most signifi- 
cant of these was the proposed transfer of the power of disallowing 
provincial acts from the Dominion to the Imperial government. 
No action, however, has thus far grown out of the resolutions of 
the conference. That there should arise some friction, from . 
time to time, between the central government and those of the 
various provinces, was inevitable. It has arisen chiefly from the 



"EQUAL RIGHT Sr 407 

disallowance of provincial acts by the central government. But 
Canada has reason to congratulate herself that the differences 
have been so few, and have been settled with so much forbearance 
on both sides. 

In this year the right was conceded to Canada of negotiating 
her own commercial treaties with foreign powers. It was pro- 
vided that when such a treaty was to be made, nego- Canada gains 
tiations should be conducted by the British minister n^|otfate*° 
and the Canadian envoy, acting together and with ^^^^^t^^s- 
equal powers. The beginning of this year witnessed a general 
Dominion election, in which the Macdonald government was 
again sustained. 

The year 1888 saw the rise of a new party, calling themselves 
the Equal Rights party, which for a time seemed likely to once 
more confuse the old party lines. It took its rise in 

^ ■> The " Equal 

an act of the provincial government of Quebec, called Rights" 

^ ° . agitation, 

the Jesuits' Estates Act, reendowing the Jesuit Order. 

This great order had been suppressed by the Pope in 1773, and 
their estates had consequently fallen to the Crown. Now, in com- 
pensation, the province granted to the Jesuits a sum of ^400,000. 
By its opponents this act was regarded as an attack on Protes- 
tantism. The Dominion government was passionately urged to 
disallow it. But Sir John Macdonald said the matter was one 
which lay quite within the powers of the provincial Legislature, 
and could not therefore be vetoed. In this judgment he was sup- 
ported not only by his own party but by an overwhelming majority 
of the Liberals as well. The act became law. But out of the 
Equal Rights movement grew an agitation in Manitoba, which has 
resulted in the discontinuance of French as an official language, 
and in an Act for the Abolition of Separate Schools. 

106. Third Dominion Census. — In 1891 was taken the third 
Dominion census. It showed a population of 4,833,239 for the 
whole of Canada. The population of 1881, as already Third Domin- 
stated, was 4,324,810; and the smallness of the in- ^o^^ census, 
crease, only about a half milUon in ten years, caused a wide-spread 



408 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

feeling of disappointment. It may be doubted, however, if there 
was much real ground for disappointment. The increase, though 
slow, had been of desirable and enduring character; and the 
increase in wealth, material comfort, and intellectual progress, as 
shown by statistics of bank deposits, trade, and education, had 
been remarkably great. The natural growth. of the older prov- 
inces had been to some extent drawn off to people the fertile and 
expectant wilderness of the North-west. It has become the habit 
to judge the progress of a country by its growth in population; 
but possibly a sounder measure of its development may be found 
in the growth of means, morals, and culture. 

In this year the government dissolved the House and appealed 
again to the country. The result, after a party struggle of unusual 

heat, was a victory for the Conservatives. The great 
Death of Sir ' ^ ° 

John Mac- statesman who had so long guided the destinies of 
donald. ° . 

Canada was now old and worn with effort. The arduous 

struggle bore too heavily upon him, and in the hour of his triumph, 

but a few weeks after the people had once more testified their 

confidence at the polls, he took his exit from the stage which his 

genius had made conspicuous. Memorable years for Canada had 

been those of his rule, years in which she had learned to lift her 

head among the nations. When Sir John Macdonald died, on 

June 6, 1 89 1, parties and factions hushed their strife to unite in 

honouring the memory of one who had done so much for his 

country. 

One year later (April 17, 1892), died the Hon. Alexander 

Mackenzie, the great Liberal statesman who had proved himself 

Macdonald's strongest rival. He alone had been able 
Death of Hon. ■ ^ r , ^ 1 , , , 

Alexander to wrest the rems of power from Macdonald s hand, 

and for five years to hold them against brilliant party 
assault and the unfriendUness of fate itself. The name of Mac- 
kenzie stands for honesty of purpose in Canadian politics. No 
statesman of Canada held more steadily than he the respect alike - 
of friend and adversary. Mackenzie had, some years before his 
death, ceased to be the leader of the Liberal party. This position 



THE BERING SEA DISPUTE. 409 

was occupied for a time by Hon. Edward Blake, who has since 
exchanged Canadian for imperial poUtics. Mr. Blake was suc- 
ceeded by Hon. Wilfrid Laurier, who is now leader of the Lib- 
erals. On the death of Sir John Macdonald, Sir John Abbott 
succeeded to the premiership. After less than a year of office he 
resigned on account of ill health, and died a year later. He was 
succeeded in the same year (1892) by Sir John S. D. Thompson. 

All this time a quarrel with the Americans over the seal-fisheries 
of Bering Sea was growing sharper with each season. This trouble 
had begun in the west as far back as 1886, when some The Bering 
Canadian sealers were seized by the Americans. The Sea dispute. 
Americans made the astonishing claim that the whole of Bering 
Sea within sixty miles of the Alaska coast was a territorial water 
of their own. As the phrase goes, they declared this vast water a 
mare clausum, or " closed sea." A glance at the map will show 
the colossal audacity of this pretension. At the same time strife 
was waxing hot in the east over the cod, herring, and mackerel 
fisheries. As we have already seen, the Atlantic coast-waters were 
acknowledged as the exclusive possession of the country which 
they washed, to a distance of three marine miles from shore. This 
was a long-estabhshed principle of international law. The Cana- 
dians claimed that in the case of waters Uke the Bay of Fundy 
and Bay Chaleur, whose coasts were exclusively Canadian, the 
line of the " three-mile limit " should run from headland to head- 
land across the mouth. The Americans, with striking incon- 
sistency, resisted this claim with vigour, and protested that the 
"three-mile limit" should be taken to follow all the windings of 
the shore. A decisive judgment in the Bering Sea controversy 
was not obtained till 1893. Canadian sealing-vessels were seized 
and confiscated in 1887 and 1889. Several times there was 
danger of armed collision. 

At last the United States agreed to Great Britain's proposal 
that the matter should be submitted to arbitration. The Bering 
Sea Court of Arbitration met in Paris on April 4, 1893, and 
sat till the middle of August. The arbitrators were Lord Han- 



4IO A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

nen and Sir John Thompson, prime minister of Canada, on be- 
half of Great Britain ; Judge Harlan and Senator Morgan on 
behalf of the United States ; Marquis Visconti Venosta, 

The Bering ^ 

Seaarbitra- of Italy; Mr. Gregora W. Gram, of Sweden; and 
Baron de Courcel, of Belgium, who presided. The 
agent for Great Britain and Canada was Mr. Charles Hibbert 
Tupper, since knighted for his services in the arbitration. The 
agent for the United States was General J. W. Foster, ex-secretary 
of state. Both sides were supported by the ablest legal counsel. 
The decision of the arbitrators was favourable to Great Britain and 
Canada. The American claims to jurisdiction over Bering Sea, to 
property rights in the seals visiting the coast and islands of Alaska, 
and to the rights of seizing vessels found trespassing on these 
alleged rights, were all firmly rejected by the Court of Arbitration. 
At the same time a series of regulations was drawn up for the 
better protection of the seal fisheries ; and both Great Britain and 
the United States were required to join in enforcing them. By 
these regulations a close season was established, making it unlaw- 
ful to kill seals from May ist to July 21st. The use of firearms in 
sealing was prohibited, and there were other regulations equally 
strict. In compensation for the unlawful seizure of Canadian 
sealing-vessels, the United States was condemned to pay the 
owners a sum of ^500,000. The decree of the Court of Arbitra- 
tion was accepted by the United States with extreme ill-grace, and 
Congress has hitherto refused to pay the damages awarded to the 
injured sealers. At the time of writing, in 1895, the matter is 
still unsettled. 

In 1893 the Liberal party held a great convention at Ottawa. 
Among the fifteen hundred delegates were the premiers of Ontario, 
The Liberal Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward 
Convention, jgij^nd. The chairman, Sir Oliver Mowat, laid stress 
on the loyalty and national feeling of the party, and explained that 
while better trade relations with the United States were to be- 
earnestly sought, they were not to be solight at any sacrifice of 
our national honour or any peril to our national existence. The 



THE COLONIAL CONFERENCE. 411 

convention passed a series of resolutions which formulated the 
policy of the Liberal party and expressed confidence in the leader- 
ship of Mr. Laurier. 

In February of this year was signed a treaty with France, under 
which France and Canada made each other certain important con- 
cessions. These related to the tariff, and were designed to encour- 
age trade between the two countries. Another important event 
was the exploration of some three thousand miles of unknown 
regions in the North-west, by members of the Geological Survey 
of Canada. The exploring party was led by Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, 
and brought back definite knowledge of the country about Lake 
Athabasca and Chesterfield Inlet. It gives one some conception 
of the vast extent of our country, when we read of the discovery 
of a river nine hundred miles long, the existence of which had 
never been guessed. 

At the World's Fair, or Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago 
in 1893, Canada made a showing of even more conspicuous bril- 
liancy than at the Centennial, carrying off no fewer Canada at the 
than twenty-three hundred and forty-seven awards. ^^^^^'^ ^^^'■■ 
The departments in which she was most successful were those of 
agriculture, live stock, transportation, and the liberal arts. Among 
educational exhibits Ontario kept up the splendid reputation which 
she had earned in 1876 ; but she was closely followed by Quebec, 
Nova Scotia, and the North-west Territories. 

In the early summer of 1894 British Columbia was visited by 
devastating floods. Swollen by unwonted rain in the mountains, 
her rivers roared in terrific volume down their wild 

Floods m 

canons, and covered the lower lands with ruin. In British 

Coliunbia. 

the settled regions about the Fraser whole villages 
were swept away, and railway communication was cut off by the 
wrecking of the bridges. The loss of life and property was a 
serious blow to so small a population. 

For significance to Canada and the empire, the chief event of 
1894 was perhaps the Colonial Conference, to which allusion has 
been already made. This conference met at Ottawa in July. It 



412 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

was presided over by the Earl of Jersey, who attended as the rep- 
resentative of Great Britain. There were delegates from Canada, 
The Colonial New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Aus- 
conference. ^^^j-^^ Tasmania, New Zealand, and South Africa. The 
objects of the conference were the encouragement of intercourse, 
the development of trade, and the promotion of sympathy be- 
tween the various members of the empire. In a word, the unity 
of Greater Britain was the end in view. Among the results of the 
conference will probably be closer trade relations, the speedy con- 
struction of a submarine cable system between Canada, Australia, 
and New Zealand, and the establishment of a fast steamship 
service between Canada and England. The view obtained by 
Australasian delegates of the progress made by Canada since 
Confederation cannot fail to hasten the day of Australasian union. 
On the 1 2th day of December, 1894, Canada was shocked by 
the sudden death of her premier. Sir John Thompson. He died 
X, .^ .c- while visiting Her Majesty at Windsor. He was at 

Death of Sir ° ■' ■" 

johnThomp- the height of his fame, secure in the trust of his 
son. ° 

country and the approbation of the empire. The 

high honour of membership in the Imperial Privy Council had 

just been conferred upon him. One of the great cruisers of 

Her Majesty's fleet, the Blenheim, was commissioned to bear his 

body back to Canada, and the embarkation was accompanied 

by a solemn ceremonial of mourning. The Blenheim steamed 

across the ocean to Halifax ; and there in his native city, from the 

Cathedral of St. Mary, the majestic state funeral took place on the 

2nd day of January, 1895. 

107. Affairs in Newfoundland up to the Present Day. — The 

most prominent feature of Newfoundland history during the last 

^,. T, ,. few years has been the French shore grievance. As 

The French ■' ° 

shore dis- we have seen, by the treaty of 1783 France was se- 
cured in the rights of taking, curing, and drying fish, 
and erecting huts and stages for such purpose, along the whole . 
western coast of Newfoundland, from Cape Ray northward, and 
down the eastern coast as far as Cape St. John. There were other 



NEWFOUNDLAND RAILWAY BUILDING. 



413 



privileges, too, such as exemption from duties, which gave their 
fishermen overvvhehning advantage. The British government had 
undertaken that its subjects should in no way interfere with the 
French fishermen in the exercise of their rights. The French 
held that any settlement along this portion of the coast, the estab- 
lishment of any industries, would be an interference. As a con- 
sequence, the mildest and most fertile parts of the island were 
left for nearly a hundred years a desert. The colonists had always 
fretted under the French restrictions. As population and enter- 
prise grew in the colony, squatters settled on the forbidden shore, 
where they lived without law, as no jurisdiction could be exerted 
by the provincial government. Protest after protest went up 
from the province, but Great Britain would not suffer the rights of 
France to be encroached upon. These rights France interpreted 
entirely to her own advantage, and asserted with severity. At 
last, in 1877, the French shore was brought within the pale of 
civilization by the estabhshment of law-courts and custom houses ; 
but the restrictions on industry and settlement remained in full 
force. In 1878 a railway was authorized by the Legislature to 
run across the island, from St. John's to St. George's Bay, opening 
up the rich valleys of the Exploits and Gander rivers.^ But 
St. George's Bay was a part of the French shore, and therefore 
the British government refused its sanction to the railway. Rail- 
ways and internal development being a manifest necessity to the 
island, a road was then planned from St. John's northward to 
Hall's Bay on the east coast, the centre of the copper-mining dis- 
trict. The first soil of this first Newfoundland railway was turned 
in August, 1 88 1. At length, in 1882, through the efforts of Sir 
William Whiteway, then provincial premier, the Imperial govern- 
ment consented to allow the issue of mining licenses and land 

1 In connection with this proposed railway a charter was granted to the "Amer- 
ican and F^uropean Short Line Railway Company," which was organized to run a 
line across the island from east to west, a fast ferry across the Gulf to Cape North 
in Cape Breton, and a line thence to connect with the Intercolonial system. Fast 
steamers were to run from the eastern terminus to Liverpool, thus giving the 
shortest possible passage between Great Britain and the New World. 



414 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



grants on the French shore, and the district received representa- 
tion in the Provincial Legislature. But the hand of France was 
felt everywhere and coUision was frequent. In 1875 ^^ agree- 
ment between England and France was signed at Paris. The 
provincial government refused to accept it, but their protests were 
not heeded, and the agreement was enforced by British and French 
naval forces. The inhabitants of the French shore hve under 
fetters, as it were. Almost any effort they may make, almost any 
enterprise they may engage upon, is likely to be taken as an 
encroachment upon French rights. The growth of nearly half the 
island is strangled to suit the convenience of a foreign power. 
The resentment of the Islanders grows yearly more bitter. In 
the season of 1889 the attitude of the settlers grew so threatening, 
the quarrels between the French and native fishermen so angry, 
that the commander of a French cruiser in St. George's Bay 
declared he would bombard the settlement and massacre the 
inhabitants if the blood of one Frenchman were spilt. In 1890 
it was claimed that the authority of the island officials was superior 
on the island to that of any British official. The right of British 
naval officers to interfere with the native fishermen in the interest 
of the French was denied. For such interference, as an illegal 
transgression of the rights of British subjects, Admiral Walker was 
tried and condemned in the Newfoundland courts. The Imperial 
government thereupon asserted its authority sharply, and admin- 
istered a severe rebuke to the province. One of the most dan- 
gerous effects of all this has been a Aveakening of the sentiment 
of loyalty .toward England. If Newfoundland were now to enter 
Confederation, Canada would find herself confronted with a grave 
problem in the French shore difficulty. It is a problem too 
perilous and too pressing to be left much longer unsettled. 

The course of the Imperial government in supporting French 
claims, overriding the acts of the provincial Legislature, and 
ordering naval officers to perform police duties against Newfound- 
land citizens, stirred up a fierce resentment at St. John's. The 
local government turned toward the United States for sympathy, 



GREAT FIRE AT ST. JOHN'S. 415 

and there arose an idle but noisy talk of annexation. One of 
the members of the government, Hon. Robert Bond, was sent to 
Washington to discuss, with the aid of the British Newfound- 
minister, the question of trade relations between New- u^te^"^^^^^ 
foundland and the United States. The astute Blaine s^^^^^- 
was then, secretary of state. He rejected the proposals of the 
British minister and the Newfoundland envoy, but submitted a 
counter proposal which Mr. Bond accepted. This trade conven- 
tion, though far more advantageous to the Americans than to 
Newfoundland, proved acceptable to the Newfoundland govern- 
ment in the temper then paramount (1890). But certain of its 
terms were extremely unjust to Canada, and at the request of the 
Canadian government Great Britain refused her sanction to the 
so-called Blaine-Bond Treaty. The indignation of the Ancient 
Colony against Great Britain was now in part turned against 
Canada. It was intolerable, fumed the Islanders, that Canada 
should be allowed to interfere. Valuable fishing privileges, secured 
to Canada's fishermen by many pledges, and in return for gen- 
erous concessions, were suddenly refused on any terms, while to 
Americans they were granted as a free gift. After vain protest, 
Canada imposed a duty on Newfoundland fish, as a slight measure 
of retaliation. The ill-feeling between the two countries, however, 
soon died away, and hostile acts were recalled on both sides. 
Since that day conferences have been held between the Canadian 
and Newfoundland governments on the subject of Confederation ; 
but they have not as yet borne fruit. The masses still view the 
idea of union with alarm, and associate it with the threat of in- 
creased taxation. 

An event which did much for peace between the Dominion and 
the Ancient Colony was the terrible fire which, in the summer of 
1892, overwhelmed the city of St. John's. This was The greatest 
the third, and most destructive, by which the city has ares^of^st^* 
been scourged. The conflagration began among the J°^°'^- 
crowded wooden buildings by the water, and before a favouring 
wind it spread with appalling swiftness. Men delaying to save 



41 6 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

their property barely escaped with their hves. Stone walls shriv- 
elled like leaves in the intense heat. The main portion of the city 
was swept out of existence. The greater portion of the population 
was left homeless and penniless. In the hour of trouble, however, 
Canada came to the rescue, with ready sympathy and generous 
hands. Towns and cities vied with one another in the munifi- 
cence of their gifts. The Americans gave also ; but their contri- 
butions were small compared with those of Canada. Tliere 
followed a sudden growth of good-will toward Canadians, a swift 
forgetfulness of petty enmities. 

The development of Newfoundland's resources has gone on but 

slowly during the past four or five years, owing to the financial 

^ ^ difficulties of the province. In iSg-? were held the 

Theflnan- . '- ^^ 

ciai disasters provincial elections, in which Sir William Whiteway's 
government was sustained. But in the following year 
the Whiteway ministry lost the confidence of the House, and a 
new administration was formed under Mr. Goodridge. The life 
of this administration was short. In 1895 the island was swept 
by a wave of financial ruin, which also swept the Goodridge 
ministry from power. The banks fell with a crash which shattered 
the proudest fortunes in the colony. Great mercantile houses of 
St. John's chased each other into bankruptcy. The Savings Bank 
closed its doors. There was no money to buy food. The people 
were starving. Again, as at the time of the great fire, help flowed 
in from abroad ; but financially the province was prostrate. Pro- 
posals of Confederation were made to Canada by the Whiteway 
government, now returned to power ; but the terms offered by 
Canada, though generous, were rejected by the island. At 
present the government is striving, by painful economy and the 
aid of an English loan, to lift the province out of its despair. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

SECTIONS : — io8, Intellectual Progress. 109, Material 
Progress, no, Present Conditions; and the Outlook. 

108. Intellectual Progress. — In a new country, like Canada, 
material must precede intellectual progress. The first makes 
possible the second. In the beginnings of settlement, and for 
long afterwards, the energies of a pioneer people are absorbed 
in the conquest of the wilderness. There are fields „ ,.^. 

^ Conditions of 

to be cleared ; houses to be built : roads, canals, rail- lite in a new 

land, 
ways, dikes to be constructed. The labour of the 

mine, the toil of the fur-trade and the fishery, these occupy the 
busy year. The hand is called upon rather than the brain ; the 
axe is busier than the pen. There is little time to think of adorn- 
ing the mind, while yet the bear and the wolf prowl nightly about 
the cabin. But while the struggle for existence is still keen comes 
the desire for education, and schoolhouses spring up at many a 
lonely cross-road. Swiftly civilization wins, the wilderness is 
subdued, farm and village thrust back the forest, the land takes 
on a new face. But the thoughts and tastes of the people are 
still altogether practical. Science is the first of intellectual pur- 
suits to find favour in their eyes. It shows new ways of making 
nature yield tribute to man's needs. It arms him for fresh con- 
quests over earth. It teaches him to tunnel mountains, open 
mines, cut canals, and spread his shining rails like giant gossa- 
mers over the land. So comes wealth, and with wealth leisure ; 
and with leisure the desire for things and thoughts not altogether 
concerned with bread and butter, but beautiful in themselves 
2E 417 



41 8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

and ennobling to the spirit. At this stage come literature and 
art, the choice fruits of civilization. This stage Canada has 
reached but lately. Her literature and her art, therefore, are 
only beginning. In science she has done more and gone further. 
But in education she has made the greatest progress. For this 
Canadians have cared, while yet they had to brush the sweat 
from their eyes in order to read ; and as a consequence Canada 
is one of the foremost countries of the world in the matter of 
popular education. Hand in hand with education, or some- 
times, rather, leading it by the hand, went religion ; for the 
makers of Canada, whether of French or English speech, whether 
of Catholic or Protestant creed, were God-fearing men. In each 
new settlement, church and schoolroom usually arose at the same 
time. 

In French Canada education may be said to have gone on the 
very heels of colonization, for one object kept in view by the 
Education iu founders of Quebec was the instruction and conver- 
Canada. gj^j^ ^^ ^^ Indians. The first school in Canada was 

at Quebec, in the early part of the seventeenth century. Its 
teachers were devoted nuns. Its pupils were wild Indian chil- 
dren, liable to run away at any moment if they got homesick for 
canoe and wigwam. In the French province free schools were 
established in 1801. In the English settlements the population 
scattered itself over wide areas, burying itself deeper in the wilds. 
The first schoolhouses of these settlements were, as a rule, rude 
cabins of logs "chinked" with moss and mud. The school- 
house stood, most often, in a lonely spot and at the meeting- 
place of one or more of the backwoods roads. The site was 
chosen so as to accommodate the greatest number of pupils. As 
the district gained in wealth, and children became more numer- 
ous, a rude frame building soon took the place of the log cabin. 
Rough desks were ranged around the wall, and children sat 
painfully dangling their legs all day from hard, high benches . 
without backs. In summer there was generally no school, for 
the bigger children were kept busy on the farms. In winter the 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



419 



walk to school was a tramp of perhaps five or six miles through 
the deep snow, in the stinging frost of early morning. In mit- 
tened but aching fingers the pupils carried their bundle of worn 
school-books and their well-filled dinner-basket. The open fire- 
place that at first warmed the schoolhouse was soon supplanted 
by a sturdy box stove, around which the benches were drawn 
close at recess and dinner hour. The gaping cracks of the 
warped board floor swallowed many a pen, slate-pencil, and 
treasured jack-knife. The hours were painfully long, but the 
discipline, though severe, was irregular ; and the room was filled 
with a clamour of recitation, studying " out loud," and surrep- 
titious talk. The subjects taught were reading, writing, elemen- 
tary rules of arithmetic, and sometimes a little geography and 
grammar. The teachers, as a rule, were wretchedly paid and 
worse prepared. Sometimes they knew little more than their 
pupils. To eke out their subsistence they had to turn their hands 
to many an odd job outside their profession. They received a 
portion of their pay by " boarding around," as the process was 
called ; that is, certain families of the district, instead of contrib- 
uting money to the teacher's salary, would take him to live with 
them for a certain length of time, thus paying him in board and 
lodging. As it was the poorer families that chose to pay in this 
way, the arrangement possessed few charms for the teacher. The 
contrast between the public schools of those days and our pres- 
ent typical public schools is as sharp as the contrast between 
backwoods and boulevard. All the provinces of Canada have 
now elaborate school systems, under which the minutest details of 
public education are in the care of responsible officials. Nowa- 
days, in all but the poorest and remotest districts, the school- 
house is at least as comfortable as the home, and generally better 
ventilated, better lighted, better warmed. The path of learning 
is made pleasant for young feet, and it is everywhere recognized 
that education, to be thorough, must be interesting. The hand 
that chiefly worked this change was that of Egerton Ryerson, 
who may be called the father of the Canadian public school. 



420 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Ryerson gave Ontario a public school system second to none in 
the world, and the model thus afforded by Ontario has been 
studied with effect by the sister provinces. Three years after 
the union of Upper and Lower Canada, Ryerson was made chief 
superintendent of education. He studied the best educational 
systems of the world and borrowed freely • from Europe and 
America to complete his scheme, which has ripened gradually 
to a perfection commanding everywhere the applause of practical 
educators. The public school instruction leads directly to the 
high schools and collegiate institutes, and thence to the Univer- 
sity of Toronto, which crowns the fair edifice. The system of 
Ontario may be taken as fairly typical, though the other prov- 
inces have made certain changes to suit special needs. In all 
alike the public schools are supported by government and local 
grants. All the people are taxed for school purposes, and to all 
the schools are free. Two of the provinces, Quebec and Ontario, 
allow of separate schools for Roman Catholics and Protestants. 
In the others no distinction of creed is recognized. In Ontario, 
educational matters are in the care of a department of the pro- 
vincial government, presided over by the minister of education. 
In the other provinces these affairs are managed by a superin- 
tendent and board of education, attached to the department of 
the provincial secretary. 

Our most important universities, in the order of seniority, are 
as follows: King's College, Nova Scotia (1789); the Univer- 
Canadian sity of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick 
Universities. (^^2,00); McGill College, Montreal (1813); Dal- 
housie College, Halifax (1821) ; the University of Toronto, 
Toronto (1827) ; Acadia College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia (1838) ; 
Queen's College, Kingston, Ontario (1841) ; Victoria College, 
formerly at Cobourg, Ontario, now at Toronto in combination 
with the University of Toronto (1841) ; Bishop's College, Len- 
noxville, Quebec (1843) j Trinity College, Toronto (1852) ;' 
Laval University, Quebec (1852) ; St. Michael's College, Tor- 
onto (1852); the University of Mount Allison, Sackville, New 



SCIENCE. 42 1 

Brunswick (1862) ; the Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, 
Ontario (1874) ; the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Mani- 
toba (1877) ; McMaster University, Toronto (1888), There 
are other colleges doing good work, besides a number of theo- 
logical and technical schools, and schools for women only. Each 
province has well- equipped Normal Schools for the training of 
its teachers, and there are flourishing schools of agriculture in 
Quebec and Nova Scotia. Out of Canada's five milhon people, 
it is estimated that more than one million are in attendance at 
her schools and colleges. If the civiHzation of a country is to 
be judged from the diffusion of knowledge among its people, 
then Canada's place must be high upon the roll. 

Canada's contribution to science is of two kinds. She has pro- 
duced several eminent scientists ; and she has organized, under 
government direction, a thoroughly equipped geo- 
logical survey, which year by year adds richly to the 
world's store of scientific knowledge. Though first of all occupied 
in the national task of discovering and making known the resources 
of our own country, the work of the Canadian Geological Survey 
reaches far beyond those limits. The present director of the 
Survey is Doctor Selwyn. The first great name in Canadian 
science is that of Sir William Logan, who became the head of the 
Geological Survey in 1841. He was born in Montreal in 1798, 
and in 1856 was knighted for his services in the cause of science. 
Certain rock formations which enter largely into the structure of 
earth's framework are known the world over as the Laurentian 
rocks. This was the name given them by Logan, who studied the 
formation among the hills of the lower St. Lawrence. Logan died 
in 1875. A name perhaps even more illustrious than his, is that 
of Sir William Dawson. Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, in 1820, 
educated at Pictou Academy and Edinburgh University, Dawson 
was made superintendent of education in his native province at 
the early age of thirty. In this post his energy and abihty were 
so conspicuous that in 1855 he was made principal of McGill 
University. His most important works are the "Acadian 



422 A HISTORY OP CANADA. 

Geology," "Fossil Men," "Origin of the Earth," and "The 
Chain of Life." To him we owe the discovery of the earliest 
form of animal life, and to his patriotism we owe the fact that this 
first of creatures is known to the scientific world as the "Eozoon 
Canadense." Sir William Dawson in 1886 was elected to the dis- 
tinguished office of president of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science. The late Sir Daniel Wilson, though 
born in Edinburgh and with his reputation won before coming to 
Canada, may be claimed by Canadian science. Being made 
president of Toronto University, he identified himself completely 
with Canadian interests, and his most important contribution to 
science, the volume on " Prehistoric Man," was written after he 
became a Canadian. Among our contemporary men of science 
stands preeminent the veteran worker, Sandford Fleming, chan- 
cellor of Queen's University, whose patriotism and learning are 
ever pointing the way to national achievements, and his energy 
pressing them to fulfilment. He first showed the feasibility of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway, finding for it a path through the 
mountains. He has identified the name of Canada, and his 
own name, with the system of standard time which now prevails 
all over Canada and the United States, and which will in all likeli- 
hood be adopted by the world. His steady advocacy of a Pacific 
cable between Canada and Australasia seems now about to win the 
fruits of success. Other Canadians there are whose hands are carry- 
ing onward the torch of knowledge ; but while they are shoulder 
to shoulder with us in contemporary emulation, their names are not 
matter for history. A later day will decide their rank and fame. 

For causes which we have already seen, literature has been a 

plant of slow growth on Canadian soil. During the larger portion 

of our history, moreover, there has been wanting that 

Literature. "" ' , . , ® 

warmth of national sentiment without which, no matter 
how favourable other conditions may be, a great imaginative litera- 
ture does not spring up. In spite of obstacles, however, Canada 
has done enough to show the strong imaginative and intellectual 
bent of her people. Her contribution to the world's literature is 



LITERA TURE. 



423 



more distinguished than that of any other colony. It is immeas- 
urably richer than anything that the great kindred repubUc to 
the south of us could boast, till more than half a century of 
national life had given her a population five times as numerous as 
ours. It must be remembered that the need of literary expression 
could not arise very early in a people whose energies were ab- 
sorbed in the struggle for Hfe, and whose cravings for intellectual 
food had the literatures of France and England to satisfy them. 
The earliest Canadian writings are, as might be expected, in 
the French language. The father of Canada, Champlain, was his 
own historian, and his narrations may justify us in calling him the 
father of Canadian literature. In the same way we may claim 
the writings of Marc Lescarbot, the immortalizer of Port Royal, 
and of Charlevoix, whose histories of " La Nouvelle France " are 
Canadian in origin and subject. With them may be mentioned 
the " Jesuit Relations," and Father Lafitau's work on the American 
Indians, which was published at Paris in 1724. All these, how- 
ever, must be regarded as Canadian literature merely by courtesy. 
Those early days of Canada produced not literature but the mate- 
rials of hterature, — the inspiration for poets, historians, novehsts, 
to come. The real beginnings of a literary spirit in Canada may 
be said to date from the triumph of Responsible Government. 
That struggle had broadened men's minds and taught them to 
think for themselves. With the consciousness of power came the 
desire for expression. Good work was done in the newspapers, 
chiefly, of course, on political questions. Patriotic poems and 
essays were written, like those of the accomplished orator and 
statesman, Joseph Howe. In Nova Scotia now arose the most 
distinguished of native Canadian writers, Thomas Chandler Hali- 
burton. Haliburton was born at Annapolis in 1796. He was 
educated at King's College, Windsor, practised law, sat as a mem- 
ber of the provincial Legislature, and was finally called to the 
bench. He wrote "An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova 
Scotia," and a number of other books ; but the work on which rests 
his fame is " The Clockmaker ; or Sayings and Doings of Sam 



424 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Slick of Slickville." The shrewd and racy utterances of the 
Yankee clockmaker became popular at once. First published by 
Joseph Howe, in his famous newspaper the Novascotian, they 
were reprinted in England and America ; and Hahburton be- 
came the progenitor of a brilliant line of American humorists. In 
recognition of his genius the University of Oxford conferred upon 
him the degree of D.C.L., — after which his own Alma Mater, 
King's College, tardily accorded him a like honour. Haliburton 
became generally known by the name of his immortal creation ; 
and the old Haliburton house at Windsor is called popularly " Sam 
Slick's place." His humour was pointed with a pungent satire 
which often touched his fellow-countrymen on the raw. Behind 
it lay the patriotic motive of arousing the provincialists to their 
splendid opportunities, and shaming them into emulation of the 
sharp and active Yankees. The effort has not been all in vain. 
At length Haliburton's fame led to the offer of a seat in the British 
House of Commons. The offer was accepted, and in 1859 
Haliburton became member for Launceston. He died in Eng- 
land in 1865. 

Canadian literature, like Canadian life, may be said to flow in 
two parallel streams, in closest connection but not intermingling. 
At first the greater fruitfulness was found in the French tongue, 
but in later years this difference has vanished, and now the work 
of English Canadians is inferior neither in quality nor volume to 
that of their French kindred. In history the great work of Fran- 
cois Xavier Garneau, the first volume of which appeared at Que- 
bec in 1845, had long to wait ere Enghsh Canada could produce 
its peer. Garneau's work covers the history of Canada down to 
the union of 1841. An English translation appeared in i860. 
Other French Canadian historians of distinction are Bibaud (who 
wrote before Garneau), Ferland, and Turcotte. The Abb^ Faillon, 
after a ten years' residence in Canada, wrote a valuable history of 
the French province. Among contemporaries whose reputation is , 
secure must be named the Abb6 Casgrain and Monsieur Benja- 
min Suite. Of historical value, though in the form of a romance, is 



LITERA TURE. 



425 



de Gasp^'s "Les Anciens Canadiens," in which the life of French 
Canada before the Conquest is reproduced with a picturesque and 
loving touch. Among Canadian historians writing in English must 
be mentioned, besides Haliburton, another Nova Scotian who was 
educated at Windsor, namely, Robert Christie, whose " History of 
Lower Canada " was contemporary with Garneau's work. Weighty 
and authoritative is Alpheus Todd's " History of Parliamentary 
Government in England." Eminent among contemporaries is 
Doctor Kingsford, of whose monumental history eight volumes 
have appeared. It is, as far as now completed, the most com- 
plete history of Canada in existence. The volumes of Doctor 
J. G. Bourinot have won acceptance all over the English-speaking 
world. Doctor Bourinot's most important work is entitled " Par- 
liamentary Practice and Procedure." Perhaps the most conspic- 
uous figure in Canadian literature at the present day is that of 
Professor Goldwin Smith, whose work is chiefly historical. Gold- 
win Smith's fame was established before he came to Canada. He 
was born in England in 1823. In 187 1 he settled in Toronto. 
Some of his writings are Canadian in subject, but they are far from 
Canadian in sentiment. His style is marked by incisive vigour 
and picturesque effect. His most important work is " The United 
States ; an Outline of Political History," published in 1893. 

In fiction the Canadian output has not been large, until within 
the past five years. Besides Haliburton and de Gasp^, already 
mentioned, the* chief names are those of James de Mille, author 
of" Cord and Creese," the " Dodge Club," etc. ; Joseph Marmette, 
author of " Frangois de Bienville " and other historical romances ; 
and William Kirby, author of " The Golden Dog." The French 
Canadian poet, Pamphile le May, has written several entertaining 
romances. In the present day a strong school of Canadian fiction 
is arising. 

The first Canadian poet of genuine gift was Octave Cr^mazie, 
who wrote in French. His lyrics are full of patriotic fervour. 
More famous than Cr^mazie is Louis Honore Frechette, whose 
poems in 1880 won for Canada the laurel wreath of the French 



426 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Academy. The volumes thus honoured by the highest literary 
tribunal in France were "Les Fleurs Boreales " and " Les Oiseaux 
de Neige." Frechette was born at L^vis in 1839. Other names 
long established in French Canadian poetry are those of P. J. O. 
Chauveau and Pamphile le May. The earliest Canadian poet 
writing in English was Charles Sangster, whose metrical description 
of Canadian scenes were first published in 1856. His verse is 
full of genuine Canadian feeling. Alexander McLachlan, as far 
back as 1861, sang of life in the back settlements. The most 
important poem of pre-Confederation days, and in some respects 
perhaps the greatest piece of Canadian verse, was the drama of 
"Saul," by Charles Heavysege, published at Montreal in 1857. 
This work received commendation in England and America. 
Midway between the older men and the young writers now known 
as the Canadian School stand John Reade, Hunter Duvar, and 
Charles Mair. The former published in 1870 a book of scholarly 
and well-wrought verse, " The Prophecy of Merlin, and Other 
Poems." Hunter Duvar's chief work is a vigorous' historical 
drama on the subject of Roberval. Charles Mair issued a thin 
volume, called "Dreamland," in 1868, and in 1886 a drama en- 
titled "Tecumseh." This thoroughly Canadian creation, full of 
sturdy patriotism, brings the author into touch with the eager 
band of young writers now winning their spurs in the literary 
arena of the world. The figures of our younger writers — poets, 
novelists, essayists, historians — are still obscured by the dust of 
struggle. They stand too near to let us judge their proportions 
accurately. They have gained a creditable standing in the eyes of 
the world ; but it is not for a contemporary to say which heads of 
them tower the highest, which names should live on the pages 
of our country's history. Suffice to say that they are helping to 
give effective form to the growing national sentiment of our people. 
In the Royal Society of Canada, science and literature meet on 
common ground. French and English writers are drawn together 
in sympathetic emulation. The society was founded by the Mar- 
quis of Lome, acting with some of the most distinguished leaders 



ROYAL SOCIETY AND ROYAL ACADEMY. 427 

of thought in the Dominion. Its object was the development of 
literature and science in Canada. Its first meeting was held at 
Ottawa, in 1882, with Sir William Dawson as president, 

^ ' ^, . .J 'The Royal 

the Hon. P. T. O. Chauveau as vice-president. The society of 

Canada, 
membership of the society was limited to eighty, 

divided into four sections of twenty each. Each section elects 
its own members. Section I. is devoted to French- Canadian 
Literature and History ; Section II. to Enghsh-Canadian Litera- 
ture and History; Section III. to Mathematical, Physical, and 
Chemical Science ; Section IV. to Geological and Biological 
Science. The society holds its annual meetings in May, usually 
at Ottawa, and publishes every year a large volume of transac- 
tions. These volumes contain an immense amount of valuable 
matter, the result of original research in the fields of history, 
archseology, and the various branches of science. The expense 
of their publication is covered by a government grant. 

What the Royal Society of Canada would fain do for literature 
and science, the Royal Canadian Academy seeks to do for art. 

This institution was founded by Lord Lome and the 

^ The Royal 

Princess Louise, in 1880. Its first president was Canadian 

Academy, 

L. R. O Brien, one of the most successful of Cana- and art in 

Canada. 

dian painters. Its members are distinguished by the 
title of Royal Canadian Academician, but the title of Associate 
Academician may be conferred upon others not yet admitted 
to full membership. Almost all Canadian artists of repute are 
on the rolls, either as full members or associates. Exhibitions 
have been held in various cities of Canada, but the Academy 
languishes for lack of public support. Canadian art has been 
very slow to develop, but the interest of Canada in her artists 
grows yet more slowly. In sculpture we have little of native 
origin to show except the excellent work of Hubert, a French- 
Canadian. But in painting the product is richer, and the work 
of some Canadian painters wins favour in the galleries and mar- 
kets of the world. Paul Kane, a depicter of Indian life, may be 
regarded as the pioneer of Canadian art. The names of Verner, 



428 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Fraser, Sandham, Forbes, Forster, Harris, Matthews, Bell-Smith, 
Reid, Bourassa, Walker, Homer Watson, emerge into prominence 
among a large number who are doing creditable work. Which of 
them will win permanent fame remains to be seen. They are 
contemporaries; and therefore, though we may rightly take a 
patriotic pride in their works, it is too soon to hazard a judgment 
on their relative importance. An artist of genuine gift was the 
young Canadian, Paul Peel, who died as he stood on the thresh- 
old of fame, crowned with the highest approval of the Paris 
Salon. At the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893, a number of 
Canadian artists were represented, and several prizes were won by 
Canadian pictures. Most conspicuous among these was a large 
and effective painting called " The Foreclosure of the Mortgage," 
by George Reid. * 

There is inspiring material for Canadian artists in our land- 
scapes and in the romantic pages of our history ; and when our 
people supply a more stimulating sympathy, and our chief cities 
awaken to the need of establishing art-galleries to advance the 
culture of their citizens, then the struggUng seedhng of Canadian 
art will doubtless expand in swift and vigorous growth. 

109. Material Progress. — The first Canadian railway was 

begun in 1832. It was about fourteen miles in length, and ran 

from La Prairie on the St. Lawrence to St. John's on 

Railways. '' 

the Richelieu, thus connecting the St. Lawrence with 
the navigable waters of Lake Champlain. In 1835 a railway was 
projected between Quebec and the winter port of St. Andrews, 
New Brunswick. Work was under way on this hne when the Ash- 
burton Treaty of 1842 gave the United States a great portion of 
the territory over which the road was to run ; and the enterprise 
was therefore given up. At the time of Confederation Canada 
had twenty-two hundred aud fifty-eight miles of railway. Now, 
by the returns of 1893, she has fifteen thousand and twenty 
miles in operation. Of these, fifty-seven hundred and eighty- 
five belong to the Canadian Pacific system, thirty-one hundred 
and sixty-eight miles to the Grand Trunk system, and thirteen 



CHIGNECTO SHIP RAILWAY. 



429 



hundred and eighty-four to the Intercolonial system, all of 
which have been discussed in earlier chapters. In her rail- 
ways Canada has nearly nine hundred millions of paid-up 
capital invested. In railway mileage Canada ranks seventh 
among the countries of the world, the United States coming 
first with one hundred and sixty- five thousand miles, then the 
British Empire, German Empire, France, Russian Empire, and 
Austrian Empire, in the order named. Canada has many ad- 
ditional railways either under construction or projected. The 
most interesting of these are the Hudson Bay Railway and the 
Chignecto Ship Railway. Of the Hudson Bay Railway some 
forty or fifty miles are built. The line runs northward from 
Winnipeg and is intended to reach Hudson Bay either at Port 
Nelson or Port Churchill. This would give a summer outlet 
for the produce of the North-west, by water route through 
Hudson's Bay and Strait. Owing to the diminution of the earth's 
circumference as it approaches the poles, the distance between 
Liverpool and Port Nelson is much less than that between Liverpool 
and Montreal or New York. With a second transcontinental line 
from Hudson Bay up the North Saskatchewan and through the 
Peace River valley to Port Simpson, the distance between Liver- 
pool and Japan would be reduced by nearly two thousand miles. 
The great disadvantage of the Hudson Bay route lies in the fact 
that the season of navigation in bay and strait is brief, as a rule 
not more than three months, and the passage much obstructed by 
fogs and ice-floes. 

The Chignecto Ship Railway is an enterprise which has come 
to a standstill when already nearing completion. It crosses the 

Isthmus of Chignecto, between New Brunswick and 

y . Chignecto 

Nova Scotia, and connects the waters of the Gulf of Ship Rail- 
way. 
St. Lawrence with those of the Bay (5f Fundy. Its 

total length is seventeen miles. It is designed to carry ships, of 

all sizes up to a burden of two thousand tons, from water to water. 

At either end of the road are docks, from which ships are to be 

raised on hydraulic lifts to the level of the rails. Secured in a 



430 



A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



huge steel cradle, the ship will be drawn across the meadows and 
through the hills by two giant locomotives, and lowered again to 
the water at her strange journey's end. It is held by the pro- 
moters that the ship railway will be cheaper to build and maintain 
than a canal of equal capacity. The need of a ship-way across 
the isthmus has been felt for nearly a century. If the railway 
proves a success, the problem of connection between Atlantic and 
Pacific waters may be solved by a ship railway across the Isthmus 
of Tehuantepec. Another interesting possibility is a ship railway 
from Georgian Bay to the lower waters of Lake Ontario. 

The Chignecto Ship Railway supplants the long-considered 
project of a canal between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of 

St. Lawrence. The canal system of Canada is one of 
Canals. 

great extent and importance. The first Canadian 

canal was that at Lachine, nine miles long, begun in 1821 and 
completed in three years. Then came the great enterprise of 
vanquishing Niagara Falls and opening connection between Lakes 
Erie and Ontario. This was accomplished by the Welland Canal, 
inseparably connected with which is the name of its dauntless 
promoter, William H. Merritt. The first Welland Canal, a shal- 
low way with but four feet of water in the locks, was open in 1829. 
Now the canal has an available depth of fourteen feet. Its 
length is twenty-seven miles. These canals are a part of the 
chief canal system of Canada, that of the St. Lawrence, which 
renders available twenty-two hundred and sixty miles of inland 
waterway. The most capacious canal of the system is that 
which overcomes the Falls of Ste. Marie, between Lakes Huron 
and Superior. The volume of freight passing between these 
lakes in one summer is greater than that passing through the Suez 
Canal in the whole year. The depth of water in the Canadian 
Canal (there is also an American canal at Ste. Marie) is twenty- 
two feet. The vast lock is nine hundred feet in length, by 
sixty in width. Certain other canals of the St. Lawrence sys-, 
tem have a depth of but nine feet. It is now proposed to 
deepen the whole system to twenty feet, thus admitting large 



SHIPPING. 



431 



ocean ships to the head of Lake Superior. These canals are 
open to Americans on the same terms as to Canadians. Other 
important canal systems of Canada are the Rideau and Ottawa,' 
giving Ottawa free water communication with Montreal and King- 
ston ; and the Richelieu and Lake Champlain system, connecting 
Montreal with New York by way of the Hudson River. Of in- 
terest, too, is the St. Peter's Canal, giving access from the Atlantic 
to the Bras d'Or Lakes which open up the heart of Cape 
Breton. As long ago as 1837 it was proposed to construct a 
canal between the Bay of Quints and Georgian Bay, utilizing the 
Trent River and a number of the lakes which lie along the in- 
tended route. The whole distance is two hundred and thirty-five 
miles, of which one hundred and fifty are already available for 
small vessels. In view of the great and rapidly growing traffic of 
the upper lakes, the project has lately been revived and may 
before long be carried out. The effect of deep water canals 
either between Erie and Ontario or between Ontario and Huron, 
and also around the various rapids of the St. Lawrence, would 
be to make the cities of the lakes practically maritime ports. 

Canada is a great maritime nation. After the fur-trade, the 
first native Canadian industry was the building of ships in which 
to gather the rich harvest of our fisheries. The sea- 

11 Shipping. 

board provmces have a coast line serried with bays, 
and estuaries, and secure little havens. Everywhere at hand stood 
the timber, and the lure of the fisheries was ever present. Each 
small port and creek-mouth came to have its ship-yard. The men 
had in their blood the seafaring instinct of their ancestors ; and 
soon our keels were furrowing every sea. In 1723 ship-building 
was an established industry with us, that year seeing the construc- 
tion of two men-of-war and six merchant ships. The device on 
New Brunswick's shield is a ship. Our daring sailors carried their 
lumber and their fish around the world, and brought many a snug 
fortune home to their native villages. Canada attained, not long 
after Confederation, the rank of the fourth ship-owning country 
of the world. Her coasts are studded with light-houses, fog- 



432 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

horns, and like safeguards to the mariner. In 1893 the registered 
ships of the world numbered thirty-two thousand nine hundred 
and twenty-eight ; of this number seventy-one hundred and thir- 
teen were Canadian, or nearly one-fourth of the whole. The 
first vessel successfully propelled by steam was Robert Fulton's 
invention, the Clermont, which ran on the Hudson in 1807 ; and 
only two years later a steamboat was running on the St. Law- 
rence. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was a Canadian 
vessel, the Royal William, built at Quebec in 1831, and supplied 
with machinery by Montreal. Canadian in its origin was the first 
successful line of ocean steamers, the great Cunard Line, which 
was begun in 1840. Its founder and head was Samuel Cunard, of 
Halifax, afterwards made a baronet. It started with a fleet of four 
steamers plying between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. The first 
distinctively Canadian ocean steamers, however, were those of the 
Allan Line, founded by Hugh Allan, plying between Liverpool 
and Quebec in summer, Liverpool and Halifax in winter. The 
first ship of this line was the Canadian, built in 1853. Allan's 
genius and indomitable energy carried the enterprise to success 
through myriad obstacles, and won him the honour of knighthood. 
Now Canada has steamship lines on both oceans and on all her 
great inland waters. She has fifteen hundred and thirty-eight 
steamers on her own registry, with many more which have been 
transferred to the British registry. The great maritime achieve- 
ment of Canada's immediate future bids fair to be the inaugu- 
ration of a line of large and swift Atlantic steamers, equal to the 
best of those running out of New York, which will cut down 
the ocean passage by way of the Canadian route to only four 
days. Of late years the conditions of shipping and ship-building 
have greatly changed. All over the world the sail is giving way 
to the screw, wooden ships to those of iron and steel ; but Canada, 
with her vast resources in iron, coal, and nickel, may count upon 
as great maritime progress under the new conditions as undei; 
the old. 

The chief of all the industries of Canada is agriculture. Our 



AGRICULTURE, MINES, AND FISHERIES. 433 

soil and climate enable us to produce the best food grains of the 
world, the best apples, the best potatoes, with live-stock and 
dairy produce inferior to none. Half our population 
depends upon agriculture for a livelihood, and our 
shipping depends upon agriculture for more than half its freights. 
Canada is already one of the great wheat exporters of the world, 
though but a small proportion of her wheat-lands has yet been 
brought under cultivation. She may reasonably look to become 
the chief of all wheat countries. 

The wealth of our soil is not only in its food products but in its 
minerals. Our tremendous and varied mineral wealth is as yet 

barely on the threshold of its development. In coal, 

. Mines, 

iron, lime, petroleum, salt, copper, nickel, gold, asbes- 
tos, our resources are inexhaustible. We have also lead, silver, 
platinum, phosphates, and almost all the other important minerals. 
Each year reveals new riches awaiting our capital and our enter- 
prise. Even now, when we may be said to have barely scratched 
the surface in a few places, the yearly product of our mines is 
worth from nineteen to twenty millions. In the harsh and deso- 
late regions about the Arctic Circle lie treasures of coal, petro- 
leum, and other minerals, which are likely to give those distant 
territories a value not possessed by many more favoured cUmes. 
The plains through which the giant Mackenzie rolls its northward 
way grow forbidding to husbandry as they approach the Circle, 
but do not cease to invite the miner's toil. It is not unlikely that 
they will some day be thronged with a busy and prosperous 
population. 

Not from the soil only, but also from the sea, does Canada 
gather in her harvests. Her fisheries are the most extensive in 

the world. Her deep-sea fisheries on the Atlantic 

r ^ ■ r I Fisherics. 

and Pacific coasts, the fresh-water fisheries of her great 

lakes and rivers, yielded in 1893 a revenue of ^21,000,000. They 
are the object of incessant care to the government, which protects 
them with armed cruisers and strict regulations. There are four- 
teen fish-breeding establishments in Canada, devoted to the hatch- 



434 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

ing of fish-spawn and the stocking of waters with young fish. 
The questions of cod, herring, mackerel, salmon, and lobster have 
seemed important enough to lead us into many quarrels with our 
neighbours. 

Besides these pursuits, of late there has grown up a great 

manufacturing interest. In 1891 Canada had seventy-five 

thousand seven hundred and forty-one industrial establishments, 

with a capital of about ^^c;i; ,000,000, distributing 

Industries ^ -^OJOJ ' > & 

and banking in wages over ^100,000,000. The busmess of Can- 
system. 

ada is carried on through the medium of thirty-nine 

chartered banks, with total assets of over ^300,000,000. The 
Dominion government issues ^21,000,000 of notes. The bank- 
ing system is both safe and elastic. We may fairly claim it to 
be the most effective banking system in existence. The oldest 
Canadian bank, as well as the richest, is the Bank of Montreal, 
established in 181 7. The currency^ of Canada is in dollars and 
cents. She issues copper and silver coin, but no gold. When 
gold coins are used in Canada, they are from the British or 
American mints. 

The postal system of Canada is elaborate and complete. The 
general letter rate is three cents per ounce or under. In 1875 
Postal, tele- Canada made an agreement with the United States by 
^feph'one^ which a Canadian letter goes to any part of the United 
systems. States for the same postage as in Canada, and an 

American letter goes to any part of Canada for the same postage 
as in America. There is no account kept between the two post- 
offices, but each country carries the other's letters free. In 1885 
Canada became a member of the Universal Postal Union, which 
now includes almost all the countries of the civilized world. In 
1893 there were eighty-four hundred and seventy-seven post- 

1 The former currency of Canada was known as " Halifrix Currency." It used 
the names pounds, shillings, and pence; but a pound was just four dollars, instead 
of ^4.865. This was called a "pound currency," to distinguish it from a "pound 
sterling." A shilling currency was 20 cents, and sixpence currency 10 cents. 
House rents in the Maritime Provinces are still sometimes reckoned in " pounds 
currency " by the older people. 



MILITARY SYSTEM. 



435 



offices in Canada, and the total number of letters and post-cards 
carried was about one hundred and twenty-nine million. The 
telegraph systems of Canada are in the hands of private com- 
panies. There are in all about thirty-two thousand miles of tele- 
graph line in Canada, in which respect we rank eighth among the 
countries of the world. The first submarine cable of the world was 
laid between Dover and Calais in 185 1. In the following year was 
laid, between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, the first 
cable of the New World ; and the second cable of the New World 
was laid between Cape Breton and Newfoundland in 1856. The 
great transatlantic cables from Europe all terminate in Canada ; 
and as a result of the Colonial Conference of 1894 there is to be 
a cable system from our shores to Australasia and the Orient. So 
close are we drawing to that Cathay which our fathers dreamed of 
finding and died in search of. The telephone had its birth in 
Canada. The first telephone ever constructed was put up in the 
town of Brantford, Ontario. ^ It connected the house of the 
inventor, Graham Bell, with that of a neighbour. In 1877, at 
Hamilton, the first business line was established. There are now 
nearly fifty thousand miles of telephone lines in Canada. 

At Confederation Canada took upon herself the charge of her 
own defences, and Great Britain, as we have seen, withdrew her 
troops, except those of the Halifax station. The Military 
naval defences of our seacoast are the care of Eng- sy^*^"^- 
land's ships. The headquarters of the North Atlantic Squadron 
are under the guns of Halifax, upon whose mighty fortifications 
Great Britain has spent millions. Our militia system is under the 
charge of a minister of militia. Subject to his orders is the 
general-in-command, whose appointment, however, rests with 
the Imperial government. The first minister of militia was the 
great French-Canadian, Sir George Cartier. The first Dominion 
Mihtia Act was passed in 1868, and has been much modified 
since. As it now stands, the militia of Canada consists of all 
the male inhabitants between the ages of eighteen and sixty, 
except clergymen, judges, and certain other officials. One who 



436 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

is the only son and sole support of a widow is also exempt. The 
sons of Canada who are liable for military service are divided 
into four classes : — ( i ) Unmarried men or childless widowers 
between eighteen and thirty; (2) Unmarried men or childless 
widowers between thirty and forty-five ; (3) Men between eigh- 
teen and forty-five who are married, or widowers with children ; 
(4) Men between forty-five and sixty. These are called upon, 
in case of necessity, in the order of their classes. There is 
a further division into Permanent, Active, and Reserve Militia. 
The permanent corps is limited to one thousand men, and con- 
sists of Cavalry, Artillery, and Infantry. These do garrison duty, 
and also serve as schools ^ of instruction for members of the Active 
Militia. There is also the permanent corps of one thousand 
North-west Mounted Police, already referred to. The Active 
Militia is limited to forty-five thousand, who serve for three years, 
and drill from eight to sixteen days each year. The Reserve 
Militia consists of all those who are not in the permanent or 
active corps. The Dominion is divided into twelve mihtary dis- 
tricts, each under the command of a deputy adjutant-general 
and permanent staff. The militia expenditure for each year is 
from one to two millions. The number of men between eighteen 
and forty-five, now available for service in case of war, is some- 
thing over a million. 

At Kingston is our Royal Military College, of which Canada 
is justly proud. It was founded in 1875, and its graduates have 
Royal Miii- done their country credit. Eighty-five of them have 
tary College, j-gceived commissions in the Imperial Army, Among 
these are two of Canada's heroes, her youngest but not least 
glorious. Captain William Grant Stairs, whose bravery and skill 
were winning him honours in African exploration when one of the 

1 The permanent corps and schools of instruction consist of " A " and " B " 
Troops, Royal Canadian Dragoons, at Quebec and Winnipeg; "A" and "B" 
Batteries, Royal Canadian Artillery, at Kingston and Quebec; Nos. i and 2 
Companies of Garrison Artillery at Quebec; Nos. i, 2, 3, and 4 Companies Royal- 
Canadian Regiment of Infantry, at London (Ontario), Toronto, St. John's (Que- 
bec), and Fredericton. 



PRESENT CONDITIONS. 



437 



deadly fevers of that treacherous land struck him down, was born 

in Halifax in 1863. He graduated at Kingston, was gazetted to 

the Royal Engineers, and followed Stanley into unknown Africa, 

where he met his death at Chinde, in 1892. Captain William 

Beverley Robinson was born in St. John in 1864, and graduated at 

Kingston. He received a commission in the Royal army, and was 

employed on the African service at Sierra Leone. While on this 

service he was sent with a little party to reduce the stockaded 

capital of a hostile tribe in the interior. The gates of the stockade 

required to be blown down with gun-cotton, as the expedition had 

no artillery. The task of applying the gun-cotton, in the face of 

the ready rifles and thronging assegais of the enemy, when the 

lightest blow would excite the explosive and rend the bearer into 

fragments, was too appalling for any of the rank and file to face. 

Captain Robinson volunteered, marched up to the gate amid a 

shower of missiles, and affixed the gun-cotton as deliberately as 

if he had been on parade. Just as his task was accomplished he 

was shot down. But his heroism had won the victory (1892). 

From the earliest pages of our story to this its latest, is traced 

the inspiring record of Canadian fortitude and Canadian daring. 

no. Present Conditions, and the Outlook. — Boundless are 

the possibilities of that future upon which the eyes of Canada 

are now fixed with confident but questioning hope. We feel 

dimly the movement of great forces, our veins thrill 

•11- , r • 1 i-r ^ ^ ^^^ heritage, 

with the unpulse of an eager national life, and the 

figure of our destiny looms splendid and mysterious before us. 
Rich almost beyond calculation is our heritage, material, intel- 
lectual, spiritual. The area of Canada is 3,456,383 square miles. 
It constitutes more than one-third of the whole British Empire, 
and is only about two hundred thousand square miles smaller 
than the continent of Europe. In other words, if Canada were 
placed upon Europe the whole of that continent would be covered, 
with the exception of France; or, if the United States, without 
Alaska, were placed on Canada, British Columbia and half Alberta 
would be left uncovered. Without its dependent territory Alaska, 



438 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the United States is four hundred thousand square miles smaller 
than Canada. The one Canadian province of British Columbia is 
larger than France, Italy, Switzerland, and Portugal taken all to- 
gether. Quebec and Ontario are each larger than the German 
Empire and Switzerland combined. Nova Scotia is larger than 
Greece, or Switzerland, or Denmark, or Holland, or Belgium. Yet 
Nova Scotia is the second smallest province of Canada. Prince 
Edward Island is larger than Montenegro. The inland waterways 
of Canada are the most extensive in the world. In her lakes and 
rivers might be sunk the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, and 
nineteen thousand square miles of water would be left unfilled. 
Our climate, though it varies enormously over an area so vast, is 
such as has always bred the strongest and most enterprising races 
of mankind. We have the largest and richest fisheries, coal areas, 
and timber regions of the world. Our wheat-lands, grazing lands, 
and iron mines, when developed, will be among the most produc- 
tive in the world. 

To develop these matchless resources we have a people blended 
of two dominant races, — a people tracing its origins to freedom, 
religion, and loyalty, — a people which has kept itself clean from 

the taint of criminal and pauper immigration. To 
Our people. . fib 

mcite us to greatness we have all the glory of France 

and Britain, whose heirs we are, whose example is always before 
us, the seeds of whose virtues are sown in our blood. Thus 
peculiarly favoured by the God of Nations, we stand with our 
feet on the threshold of the future. In the wide prospect which 
opens before our eyes there is more than one possible goal re- 
vealed. To which of these our fate is leading us is a question 
which should stir us with ceaseless solicitude. It is a question of 
tremendous import. It gives to life in Canada a meaning, a hope, 
an impulse, a sense of mighty possibilities. We feel that these 
are great and significant days. We seem to ourselves the chil- 
dren of Destiny. 

Our present colonial position can hardly be a permanent one. 
Favourable as it is to our growth, it is not the best thing for our 



CANADA'S FUTURE. 



439 



manhood that we should too long continue to accept the pro- 
tection of the motherland without bearing our part in the respon- 
sibilities of empire. Colonies are children of the pa- 

'■ Our present 
rent nation. When a child becomes a man, he by-and- colonial 

status, 
by ceases to serve in his father's house. He is either 

taken into full partnership, or he goes forth to face life indepen- 
dently and work out his destiny with his own hands. The colonial 
standing is a subordinate one, disguise it as we may. To accept 
it as permanent would stamp us cowards, and give the lie to our 
whole heroic past. But it may well last a generation yet, en- 
abhng us to pursue our course of peaceful expansion ; on the 
other hand, it may scarce outlive this century, which draws to a 
close amid many portents of change. 

The future presents to us three possible alternatives, — absorp- 
tion by the United States, Independence, or a federal union with 
the rest of the British Empire. The first of these 

The possibili- 

is the fate which, as we know, has long been planned ties of our 

future. 

for US by our kinsfolk of the great repubUc. The 
Monroe doctrine, already referred to, seems to anticipate it ; for 
in the eyes of some American statesmen and historians it is the 
manifest destiny of the United States to occupy the North Ameri- 
can continent. But to Canadians " manifest destiny " wears a 
very different face. It is through no unfriendliness toward a great 
kindred people that we reject unconditionally the idea of absorp- 
tion. We point with pride to the magnificent achievements of 
that nation, allied to us in language and in blood. Their self- 
rehant energy, their intellectual force, their ardent patriotism, we 
hold up as an example to ourselves. But our growth has been on 
different lines from theirs, our aspirations and political ideas are 
not theirs, our very existence as a people has its root in a sharp 
divergence from their principles. As the sentiment of Canadian 
nationalism deepens year by year, we realize that to sink our life 
in another's, to have our country torn apart and swallowed up as 
so many additional states of the American Union, would be a 
burning ignominy. It would make vain all the sacrifices of our 



440 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

fathers, all the blood they shed in their country's cause. We 
should be no longer worthy of the great nation into whose bosom 
we should carry our sordid purposes and craven hearts. The 
name of Canada would cease to shine across the continent ; and 
in vanishing it would leave but a humiliating memory. It is safe 
to conclude that absorption by the United States, commonly 
known as Annexation, is not likely to be the fate of Canada. 

But the other alternatives, Independence and Federation with 
the Empire, come within the range of the probable. Either would 
seem to be a goal toward which patriotism might consistently 
strive. To many ardent Canadians, Independence seems the more 
attractive ideal. It is a manly ideal, easy to grasp, and thrilling 
to the young imagination. At the same time it seems to stand 
fairly in the line of our growth. It could perhaps be accomplished 
without any violent break in the course of our history. But there 
can be Httle doubt that if undertaken now or soon it would but 
open a door to annexation. It would put us to such an expense 
for diplomatic, consular, mihtary, and above all naval service, in 
the protection of our vast commercial navy, that we might soon 
find ourselves borne to the ground with debt. No longer backed 
by Great Britain, we should be at the mercy of every demand of 
the United States, who might help herself to our fisheries, or, 
forcing us to defend them in a ruinous war, dismember us when 
exhausted, even as she treated Mexico. If Independence is to 
be our goal, we should be rash indeed to seek it now, while our 
population is so small and our wide frontier so vulnerable. 

Meanwhile there is rising into view a grander idea, which 
appeals to a higher and broader patriotism. The project of Im- 
perial Federation fits at least as logically upon our career as Inde- 
pendence. Indeed, it gives a fuller meaning to our whole past, 
— to our birth from the disruption of 1776, — to our almost 
miraculous preservation from seizure by the United States while 
we were yet but a handful of scattered settlements, — to our 
struggle for unity, — to our daring and splendid expansion, — and 
to the cost at which we have secured it. Independence, more- 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 



441 



over, is selfish in its aims, while Imperial Federation considers not 
our own interests only, but those of the mother country, and the 
growing debt of loyalty which we owe her. It is possible to con- 
ceive of a form of Imperial Federation which would so guard the 
autonomy of each federating nation and so strictly limit the powers 
of the central government as to satisfy even those who desire 
absolute independence. The practical independence enjoyed under 
such a federation would be secured by the force of the whole 
empire. It is urged that the difficulties in the way are too great 
to be overcome, — but it is the fashion of our race to overcome 
difficulties. It is urged that the distances between Great Britain, 
Canada, Australasia, South Africa, are too vast to permit of union, 
. — but the swift steamship, the fast express, the cable, and the 
telegraph have so reduced the effect of these distances that the 
most widely separated portions of the empire are now less far 
apart than were Ottawa and Vancouver Island when British 
Columbia joined the Dominion. Imperial Federation would admit 
us to full political manhood without the dishonour of annexation, 
or the risk and the ingratitude of Independence. It would build 
up such a power as would secure the peace of the world. It 
would gain for our race a glory beside which the most dazzling 
pages of earth's history would grow pale. It is a less daring 
dream than that which Canada brought to pass when she united 
the shores of three oceans under the sway of one poor and scat- 
tered colony. It is Canada who has taught feeble provinces 
how to federate, how to form a mighty commonwealth while re- 
maining within the empire. It may be her beneficent mission, 
also, to lead the way toward the realization of the vaster and more 
glorious dream. 



APPENDIX A. 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT 

An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 
• and the Government thereof, and for Purposes connected therewith. 

[2gth March, 1867.] 

Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion 
under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 
with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom : 

And whereas such a Union would conduce to the Welfare of the 
Provinces and promote the Interests of the British Empire : 

And whereas on the Establishment of the Union by Authority of 
Parliament it is expedient, not only that the Constitution of the Legis- 
lative Authority in the Dominion be provided for, but also that the 
Nature of the Executive Government therein be declared : 

And whereas it is expedient that Provision be made for the eventual 
Admission into the Union of other Parts of British North America : 

Be it therefore enacted and declared by the Queen's most Excellent 
Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual 
and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, 
and by the Authority of the same, as follows : 

I. Preliminary. 

1. This Act may be cited as The British North America Act, 1867. 

2. The Provisions of this Act referring to Her Majesty the Queen 
extend also to the Heirs and Successors of Her Majesty, Kings and 
Queens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

443 



444 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 



II. Union. 

3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice of Her 
Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, to declare by Proclamation 
that, on and after a Day therein appointed, not being more than Six 
Months after the passing of this Act, the Provinces of Canada, Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick shall form and be One Dominion under the 
Name of Canada ; and on and after that Day those three Provinces 
shall form and be One Dominion under that Name accordingly. 

4. The subsequent Provisions of this Act shall, unless it is other- 
wise expressed or implied, commence and have effect on and after the 
Union, that is to say, on and after the Day appointed for the Union, 
taking effect in the Queen's Proclamation ; and in the same Provisions, 
unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the Name Canada shall be 
taken to mean Canada as constituted under this Act. 

5. Canada shall be divided into Four Provinces, named Ontario, 
Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. 

6. The Parts of the Province of Canada (as it exists at the passing 
of this Act), which formerly constituted respectively the Provinces 
of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, shall be deemed to be severed, 
and shall form Two separate Provinces. The Part which formerly con- 
stituted the Province of Upper Canada shall constitute the Province 
of Ontario ; and the part which formerly constituted the Province of 
Lower Canada shall constitute the Province of Quebec. 

7. The Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall have 
the same Limits as at the passing of this Act. 

8. In the general Census of the Population of Canada, which is 
hereby required to be taken in the Year One thousand eight hundred 
and seventy-one, and in every Tenth Year thereafter, the respective 
Population of the Four Provinces shall be distinguished. 



III. Executive Power. 

9. The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada 
is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen. 

10. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General 
extend and apply to the Governor General for the Time being of 
Canada, or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator for the 



APPENDIX A. 445 

Time being carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in 
the Name of the Queen, by whatever Title he is designated. 

11. There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government 
of Canada, to be styled the Queen's Privy Council for Canada ; and the 
Persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be from Time to 
Time chosen and summoned by the Governor General and sworn in as 
Privy Councillors, and Members thereof may be from Time to Time 
removed by the Governor General. 

12. All Powers, Authorities, and functions which under any Act of 
the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of Upper 
Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, are 
at the Union vested in or exercisable by the respective Governors or 
Lieutenant Governors of those Provinces, with the Advice, or with the 
Advice and Consent of the respective Executive Councils thereof, or in 
conjunction with those Councils, or with any Number of Members 
thereof, or by those Governors or Lieutenant Governors individually, 
shall, as far as the same continue in existence and capable of being 
exercised after the Union in relation to the Government of Canada, be 
vested in and exercisable by the Governor General, with the Advice or 
with the Advice and Consent of or in conjunction with the Queen's 
Privy Council for Canada, or any Members thereof, or by the Governor 
General individually, as the Case requires, subject nevertheless (ex- 
cept with respect to such as exist under Acts of the Parliament of 
Great Britain or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland) to be abolished or altered by the Parliament of 
Canada. 

13. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General in 
Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor General acting 
by and with the Advice of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. 

14. It shall be lawful for the Queen, if Her Majesty thinks fit, to 
authorize the Governor General from Time to Time to appoint any 
Person or any Persons jointly or severally to be his Deputy or Depu- 
ties within any Part or Parts of Canada, and in that Capacity to exer- 
cise during the Pleasure of the Governor General such of the Powers, 
Authorities, and Functions of the Governor General as the Governor 
General deems it necessary or expedient to assign to him or them, 
subject to any Limitations or Directions expressed or given by the 
Queen ; but the Appointment of such a Deputy or Deputies shall not 



446 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

affect the Exercise- by the Governor General himself of any Power, 
Authority, or Function. 

15. The Commander-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Militia, and 
of all Naval and Military Forces of and in Canada, is hereby declared 
to continue and be vested in the Queen. 

16. Until the Queen otherwise directs, the Seat of Government of 
Canada shall be Ottawa. 

IV. Legislative Power. 

17. There shall be One Parliament for Canada, Consisting of the 
Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons. 

18. Repealed — new Section substituted. See Appendix B. 

19. Related only to calling of First Parliatnetit . Acted npon. 

20. There shall be a Session of the Parliament of Canada once at 
least in every Year, so that Twelve Months shall not intervene between 
the last Sitting of the Parliament in one Session and its first Sitting in 
the next Session. 

The Senate. 

21. The Senate shall, subject to the Provisions of this Act, consist 
of Seventy-two Members, who shall be styled Senators. 

22. In relation to the Constitution of the Senate, Canada shall be 
deemed to consist of Three Divisions — 

1 . Ontario ; 

2. Quebec; 

3. The Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; 
which Three Divisions shall (subject to the Provisions of this Act) be 
equally represented in the Senate as follows : Ontario by Twenty-four 
Senators ; Quebec by Twenty-four Senators, and the Maritime Prov- 
inces by Twenty-four Senators, twelve thereof representing Nova 
Scotia, and twelve thereof representing New Brunswick. 

In the Case of Quebec each of the Twenty-four Senators represent- 
ing that Province shall be appointed for One of the Twenty-four 
Electoral Divisions of Lower Canada specified in Schedule A. to 
Chapter One of the Consolidated Statutes of Canada. 

The Senate 7io'w numbers 81 — Ontario, 24; Quebec, 24; Nova 
Scotia, 10; New Brutiswick, 10; Manitoba, 4; British Columbia, 3; 
Prince Edward Island, 4; North West Territories, 2. See Section 
IA7 of Ifi^^ Act. As Pri7ice Edward Island is now admitted into the 
Dominion, the representatives from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 



APPENDIX A. 447 

are respectively ten in number. Majiitoba has four Senators, its popu- 
lation being 07)er 75,000 (152,506 in 1891). R. S. C. c, 12. 

23. The Qualification of a Senator shall be as follows : — 
(i) He shall be of the full Age of Thirty Years : 

(2) He shall be either a Natural-born Subject of the Queen, or a 

Subject of the Queen naturalized by an Act of the Parliament 
of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of One of 
the Provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova 
Scotia, or New Brunswick, before the Union, or of the Parlia- 
ment of Canada after the Union : 

(3) He shall be legally or equitably seized as of Freehold for his 

own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in free and 
common Socage, or seized or possessed for his own Use and 
Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Franc aleu or in 
Roture, within the Province for which he is appointed, of the 
Value of Four thousand Dollars, over and above all Rents, 
Dues, Debts, Charges, Mortgages, and Incumbrances due or 
payable out of or charged on or affecting the same : 

(4) His Real and Personal Property shall be together worth Four 

thousand Dollars over and above his Debts and Liabilities : 

(5) He shall be resident in the Province for which he is appointed : 

(6) In the Case of Quebec he shall have his Real Property Quali- 

fication in the Electoral Division for which he is appointed, or 
shall be resident in that Division. 

24. The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen's 
Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon quali- 
fied Persons to the Senate ; and, subject to the Provisions of this Act, 
every Person so summoned shall become and be a Member of the 
Senate and a Senator. 

25. Such Persons shall be first summoned to the Senate as the 
Queen by Warrant under Her Majesty's Royal Sign Manual thinks fit 
to approve, and their Names shall be inserted in the Queen's Proclama- 
tion of Union. 

26. If at any Time on the Recommendation of the Governor General 
the Queen thinks fit to direct that Three or Six Members be added to 
the Senate, the Governor General may by Summons to Three or Six 
qualified Persons (as the Case may be), representing equally the Three 
Divisions of Canada, add to the Senate accordingly. 



448 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

27. In case of such Addition being at any Time made, the Governor 
General shall not summon any Person to the Senate, except on a further 
like Direction by the Queen on the like Recommendation, until each 
of the Three Divisions of Canada is represented by Twenty-four Sena- 
tors and no more. 

28. The Number of Senators shall not at any Time exceed Seventy- 
eight. See note io Section 22 above. 

29. A Senator shall, subject to the Provisions of this Act, hold his 
Place in the Senate for Life. 

30. A Senator may by writing under his Hand addressed to the 
Governor General resign His Place in the Senate, and thereupon the 
same shall be vacant. 

31. The Place of a Senator shall become vacant in any of the fol- 
lowing Cases : — 

(i) If for Two consecutive Sessions of the Parliament he fails to give 
his Attendance in the Senate : 

(2) If he takes an Oath or makes a Declaration or Acknowledgment 

of Allegiance, Obedience or Adherence to a Foreign Power, 
or does an Act whereby he becomes a Subject or Citizen, or 
entitled to the Rights or Privileges of a Subject or Citizen, 
of a Foreign Power : 

(3) If he is adjudged Bankrupt or Insolvent, or applies for the Benefit 

of any Law relating to Insolvent Debtors, or becomes a public 
Defaulter : 

(4) If he is attainted of Treason or convicted of Felony or of any 

infamous Crime : 

(5) If he ceases to be qualified in respect of Property or of Residence ; 

provided that a Senator shall not be deemed to have ceased 
to be qualified in respect of Residence by reason only of his 
residing at the Seat of the Government of Canada while hold- 
ing an Office under that Government requiring his Presence 
there. 

32. When a Vacancy happens in the Senate by Resignation, Death, 
or otherwise, the Governor General shall by Summons to a fit and 
qualified Person fill the Vacancy. 

33. If any Question arises respecting the Qualification of a Senator 
or a Vacancy in the Senate, the same shall be heard and determined by 
the Senate. 

34. The Governor General may from Time to Time, by Instrument 



APPENDIX A. 449 

under the Great Seal of Canada, appoint a Senator to be Speaker of 
the Senate, and may remove him and appoint another in his Stead. 

35. Until the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, the Presence 
of at least Fifteen Senators, including the Speaker, shall be necessary 
to.constitute a Meeting of the Senate for the Exercise of its Powers. 

36. Questions arising in the Senate shall be decided by a Majority 
of Voices, and the Speaker shall in all Cases have a Vote, and when 
the Voices are equal the Decision shall be deemed to be in the Negative. 

The House of Commons. 

37. Provided for 181 Members of the House of Commons; now 
(50-51 Vzct. [Dom.^, c. 4) the House consists of 21 ^ Members as 
follows : — Ontario, 92 ; Quebec. 65 ; Nova Scotia, 2 1 ; New Brjins- 
wick, 16; Prince Edward Island, 6; British Columbia, 6; Manitoba, 
5 ; North- West Territories, 4. After the next General Election, the 
member will be 213: — Ontario, 92 ; Quebec, 65 ; Nova Scotia, 20 ; New 
Brtmswick, 14; Manitoba, 7; British Columbia, 6; Prince Edward 
Island, 5 ; North-West Territories, 4. 55-56 Vict. [E>om.'] c. 117. 

38. The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen's 
Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon and 
call together the House of Commons. 

39. A Senator shall not be capable of being elected or of sitting or 
voting as a Member of the House of Commons. 

40. Until the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, Ontario, 
Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall, for the Purposes of 
the Election of Members to serve in the House of Commons, be divided 
into Electoral Districts as follows : — 

The Districts as arranged by the B. N. A. Act have since beeti altered. 
See R. S. C, c. 6, amended by 50-51 Vict. {Dom.'), c. 4. Each District 
returns one Monber. 

41 . Provided that until the Parliament of Canada otherwise eiiacted, 
the Provincial laws relating to Elections and electoral matters generally 
should apply to Dominion Elections. Now, by R. S. C, chapters 5, 
8 and 9, and subsequent amending Acts, the Domijiion has provided 
legislation for all these matters. This Section is, therefore, superseded. 

42. Related solely to first election for Dominion Parliament. Effete. 

43. Related to filling of vacancies in representation before meet if ig 
of Parliament — now superseded. 

44. The House of Commons on its first assembling after a General 



450 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Election shall proceed with all practical speed to elect one of its Members 
to be Speaker. 

45. In case of a Vacancy happening in the Office of Speaker by 
Death, Resignation, or otherwise, the House of Commons shall with 
all practicable speed proceed to elect another of its Members to be 
Speaker. 

46. Tlie Speaker shall preside at all Meetings of the House of 
Commons. 

47. Until the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, in case of the 
Absence for any Reason of the Speaker from the Chair of the House of 
Commons for a Period of Forty-Eiglit consecutive Hours, the House 
may elect another of its Members to act as Speaker, and the Member 
so elected shall during the Continuance of such absence of the Speaker 
have and execute all the Powers, Privileges and Duties of Speaker. 

48. The Presence of at least Twenty members of the House of 
Commons shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for 
the Exercise of its Powers ; and for that purpose tlie Speaker shall be 
reckoned as a Member. 

49. Questions arising in the House of Commons shall be decided 
by a Majority of Voices other than that of the Speaker, and when the 
Voices are equal, but not otherwise, the Speaker shall have a Vote. 

50. Every House of Commons shall continue for five years from the 
Day of the Return of the Writs for choosing the House (subject to be 
sooner dissolved by the Governor General), and no longer. 

51. On the Completion of the Census in tlie Year One thousand eight 
hundred and seventy-one, and of each subsequent decennial Census, 
the Representation of the four Provinces shall be readjusted by such 
Authority, in such Manner, and from such Time, as the Parliament of 
Canada from Time to Time provides, subject and according to the 
following Rules : — 

(i) Quebec shall have the fixed number of Sixty-five Members. 

(2) There shall be assigned to each of the other Provinces such a 

number of Members as will bear the same Proportion to the 
Number of its Population (ascertained at such Census) as 
the Number Sixty-five bears to the Number of the Population 
of Quebec (so ascertained): 

(3) In the Computation of the Number of Members for a Province a. 

fractional Part not exceeding One Half of the whole Number 
requisite for entitling the Province to a Member shall be dis- 



APPENDIX A. 451 

regarded ; but a fractional Part exceeding One Half of that 
Number shall be equivalent to the whole Number: 

(4) On any such Re-adjustment the Number of Members for a Province 

shall not be reduced unless the Proportion which the Number 
of the Population of the Province bore to the Number of the 
aggregate Population of Canada at the then last preceding 
Re-adjustment of the Number of Members for the Province 
is ascertained at the then last Census to be diminished by One 
Twentieth Part or upwards : 

(5) Such Re-adjustment shall not take effect until the Termination of 

the then existing Parliament. 

52. The Number of Members of the House of Commons may be 
from Time to Time increased by the Parliament of Canada, Provided 
the proportionate Representation of the Provinces prescribed by this 
Act is not thereby disturbed. 

See Note to Sections 37 and 40 above. The re-adJHst7ne?tt referred 
to has been jfiade and the result is stated at foot of yj. 

Money Votes: Royal Assent. 

53. Bills for appropriating any Part of the Public Revenue, or for 
imposing any Tax or Impost, shall originate in the House of Commons. 

54. It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or 
Pass any Vote, Resolution, Address or Bill for the Appropriation of 
any Part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any Pur- 
pose that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of 
the Governor General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, 
Address or Bill is proposed. 

55. Where a Bill passed by the Houses of Parliament is presented 
to the Governor General for the Queen's Assent, he shall declare, 
according to his discretion, but subject to the Provisions of this Act 
and to Her Majesty's Instructions, either that he assents thereto in the 
Queen's Name, or that he withholds the Queen's Assent, or that he 
reserves the Bill for the Signification of the Queen's Pleasure. 

56. Where the Governor General assents to a Bill in the Queen's 
Name, he shall, by the first convenient Opportunity, send an authentic 
Copy of the Act to one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, 
and if the Queen in Council within Two Years after Receipt thereof by 
the Secretary of State thinks fit to disallow the Act, such disallowance 
(with a Certificate of the Secretary of State of the Day on which the 



452 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Act was received by him) being signified by the Governor General, 
by Speech or Message to each of the Houses of the Parliament or by 
Proclamation, shall annul the Act from and after the Day of such 
Signification. 

57. A Bill reserved for the Signification of the Queen's Pleasure 
shall not have any Force unless and until within Two Years from the 
Day on which it was presented to the Governor General for the Queen's 
Assent, the Governor General signifies, by Speech or Message to each 
of the Houses of the Parliament or by Proclamation, that it has received 
the Assent of the Queen in Council. 

An Entry of every such Speech, Message, or Proclamation shall be 
made in the Journal of each House, and a Duplicate thereof duly attested 
shall be delivered to the proper Officer to be kept among the Records 
of Canada. 

V. Provincial Constitutions. 

Executive Power. 

58. For each Province there shall be an Officer, styled the Lieuten- 
ant Governor, appointed by the Governor General in Council by Instru- 
ment under the Great Seal of Canada. 

59. A Lieutenant Governor shall hold Office during the Pleasure of 
the Governor General ; but any Lieutenant Governor appointed after 
the Commencement of the First Session of the Parliament of Canada 
shall not be removable within Five Years from his Appointment, except 
for Cause assigned, which shall be communicated to him in Writing 
within One Month after the Order for his Removal is made, and shall 
be communicated by Message to the Senate and to the House of Com- 
mons within One Week thereafter if the Parliament is then sitting, and 
if not then, within One Week after the Commencement of the next 
Session of the Parliament. 

60. The Salaries of the Lieutenant Governors shall be fixed and 
provided by the Parliament of Canada. 

61. Every Lieutenant Governor shall, before assuming the Duties 
of his Office, make and subscribe before the Governor General or some 
Person authorized by him. Oaths of Allegiance and Office similar to 
those taken by the Governor General. 

62. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Lieutenant Governor . 
extend and apply to the Lieutenant Governor for the Time being of 
each Province or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator 



APPENDIX A. 453 

for the Time being carrying on the Government of the Province, by 
whatever Title he is designated. 

63. The Executive Council of Ontario and Quebec shall be composed 
of such Persons as the Lieutenant Governor from Time to Time thinks 
fit, and in the first instance of the following Officers, namely, — the 
Attorney General, the Secretary and Registrar of the Province, the 
Treasurer of the Province, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and 
the Commissioner of Agriculture and Public Works, within Quebec, the 
Speaker of the Legislative Council and the Solicitor General. 

As to Ontario, see R. S. O. 1887, c. 13. 

64. The Constitution of the Executive Authority in each of the 
Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall, subject to the Pro- 
visions of this Act, continue as it exists at the Union, until altered under 
the Authority of this Act. 

65. All Powers, Authorities and functions which under any Act of 
the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of Upper 
Canada, Lower Canada, or Canada, were or are before, or at the Union 
vested in or exercisable by the respective Governors or Lieutenant 
Governors of those Provinces, with the Advice, or with the Advice and 
Consent, of the Respective Executive Councils thereof, or in conjunc- 
tion with those Councils, or with any Number of Members thereof, or 
by those Governors or Lieutenant Governors individually, shall, as far 
as the same are capable of being exercised after the Union in relation 
to the Government of Ontario and Quebec respectively, be vested in, 
and shall or may be exercised by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario 
and Quebec respectively, with the Advice or with the Advice and 
Consent of or in conjunction with the respective Executive Councils, 
or any Members thereof, or by the Lieutenant Governor individually, as 
the Case requires, subject nevertheless (except with respect to such as 
exist under Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parlia- 
ment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) to be 
abolished or altered by the respective Legislatures of Ontario and 
Quebec. 

66. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Lieutenant Governor 
in Council shall be construed as referring to the Lieutenant Governor 
of the Province acting by and with the Advice of the Executive Council 
thereof. 

67. The Governor General in Council may from Time to Time 



454 ^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 

appoint an Administrator to execute the Office and Functions of 
Lieutenant Governor during his Absence, Illness, or other Inability. 

68. Unless and until the Executive Government of any Province 
otherwise directs with respect to that Province, the Seats of Government 
of the Provinces shall be as follows, namely, — of Ontario, the City of 
Toronto ; of Quebec, the City of Quebec ; of Nova Scotia, the City of 
Halifax ; and of New Brunswick, the City of Fredericton. 

Legislative Power. 

1 . Ontario. 

69. There shall be a Legislature for Ontario consisting of the Lieu- 
tenant Governor and of One House, styled the Legislative Assembly of 
Ontario. 

70. The Legislative Assembly of Ontario shall be composed of 
Eighty-two Members, to be elected to represent the Eighty-two Elec- 
toral Districts set forth in the First Schedule to this Act. 

In Ontario there are naw eighty-nijte Electoral Districts^ retiirjiing 
ninety-one members. R. S. O. 1887, c. 7, ainended by 52 Vict. {Ont.), 
c. 2, s. 2. There may be a re-adjnstment in Ontario during the next 
Session based oti the last Census. 

2. Quebec. 

Ti. There shall be a Legislature for Quebec consisting of the Lieu- 
tenant Governor and of Two Houses, styled the Legislative Council of 
Quebec and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. 

72. The Legislative Council of Quebec shall be composed of Twenty- 
Four Members, to be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in the 
Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Quebec, one 
being appointed to represent each of the Twenty-Four Electoral Divi- 
sions of Lower Canada in this Act referred to, and each holding Office 
for the Term of his Life, unless the Legislature of Quebec otherwise 
provides under the Provisions of this Act. 

73. The Qualifications of the Legislative Councillors of Quebec shall 
be the same as those of the Senators for Quebec. 

74. The Place of a Legislative Councillor of Quebec shall become 
vacant in the Cases, mutatis mutafidis, in which the place of Senator 
becomes vacant. 

75. When a Vacancy happens in the Legislative Council of Quebec 



APPENDIX A. 455 

by Resignation, Death, or otherwise, the Lieutenant Governor in the 
Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Quebec, shall 
appoint a fit and qualified Person to fill the Vacancy. 

76. If any Question arises respecting the Qualification of a Legisla- 
tive Councillor of Quebec, or a Vacancy in the Legislative Council of Que- 
bec, the same shall be heard and determined by the Legislative Council. 

77. The Lieutenant Governor may from Time to Time, by Instrument 
under the Great Seal of Quebec, appoint a Member of the Legislative 
Council of Quebec to be Speaker thereof, and may remove him and 
appoint another in his Stead. 

78. Until the Legislature of Quebec otherwise provides, the Presence 
of at least Ten Members of the Legislative Council, including the Speaker, 
shall be necessary to constitute a Meeting for the Exercise of its Powers. 

79. Questions arising in the Legislative Council of Quebec shall be 
decided by a Majority of Voices, and the Speaker shall in all cases have 
a Vote, and when the Voices are equal the Decision shall be deemed to 
be in the negative. 

80. The Legislative Assembly of Quebec shall be composed of Sixty- 
five Members to be Elected to represent the Sixty-five Electoral Divi- 
sions or Districts of Lower Canada in this Act referred to, subject to 
Alteration thereof by the Legislature of Quebec : Provided that it shall 
not be lawful to present to the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec for 
Assent any Bill for Altering the Limits of any of the Electoral Divisions 
or Districts mentioned in the Second Schedule to this Act, unless the 
Second and Third Readings of such Bill have been passed in the 
Legislative Assembly with the Concurrence of the Majority of the Mem- 
bers representing all those Electoral Divisions or Districts, and the 
Assent shall not be given to such Bill unless an Address has been 
presented by the Legislative Assembly to the Lieutenant Governor 
stating that it has been so passed. 

3. Ojitario and Quebec. 

8i. Related to first meeting of Legislatures of Ontario and Quebec. 
Effete. 

82. The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and of Quebec shall from 
Time to Time, in the Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great 
Seal of the Province, summon and call together the Legislative As- 
sembly of the Province. 

83. Until the Legislature of Ontario or of Quebec otherwise provides, 



456 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

a Person accepting or holding in Ontario or in Quebec any Office, Com- 
mission or Employment, permanent or temporary, at the Nomination 
of the Lieutenant Governor, to which an annual Salary, or any Fee, 
Allowance, Emolument, or profit of any Kind or Amount whatever 
from the Province is attached, shall not be eligible as a Member of the 
Legislative Assembly of the respective Province, nor shall he sit or vote 
as such ; but nothing in this Section shall make ineligible any Person 
being a Member of the Executive Council of the respective Province, 
or holding any of the following offices, that is to say, the Offices of 
Attorney General, Secretary and Registrar of the Province, Treasurer 
of the Province, Commissioner of Crown Lands, and Commissioner 
of Agriculture and Public Works, and in Quebec Solicitor General, or 
shall disqualify him to sit or vote in the House for which he is elected, 
provided he is elected while holding such Office. 

Acts have been passed in Ontario to further secure the independence 
of the Legislature. R. S. O. 1887, c. \\, sees. 6 to 14. 

84. Related to Electoral Matters in the Provinces of Ontario and 
Quebec. Superseded in Ontario by R. S. O. 1887, chaps. 9 and 10. 

85. Every Legislative Assembly of Ontario and Every Legislative 
Assembly of Quebec shall continue for Four Years from the Day of the 
Return of the Writs for choosing the same (subject nevertheless to either 
the Legislative Assembly of Ontario or the Legislative Assembly of 
Quebec being sooner dissolved by the Lieutenant Governor of the 
Province), and no longer. 

86. There shall be a session of the Legislature of Ontario and of 
that of Quebec once at least in every Year, so that Twelve Months 
shall not intervene between the last Sitting of the Legislature in each 
Province in one Session and its first Sitting in the next Session. 

87. The following Provisions of this Act respecting the House of 
Commons of Canada shall extend and apply to the Legislative Assem- 
blies of Ontario and Quebec, that is to say, — the Provisions relating 
to the Election of a Speaker originally and on Vacancies, the Duties 
of the Speaker, the absence of the Speaker, the Quorum, and the mode 
of voting, as if those Provisions were here re-enacted and made appli- 
cable in Terms to each such Legislative Assembly. 

4. Nova Scotia and New Br^ttiswick. 

88. The Constitution of the Legislature of each of the Provinces of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall, subject to the Provisions of this 



APPENDIX A. 457 

Act, continue as it exists at the Union until altered under the Authority 
of this Act ; and the House of Assembly of New Brunswick existing at 
the passing of this Act shall, unless sooner dissolved, continue for the 
period for which it was elected. 

5. Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. 

89. Related to calling of the first Legislatures. Effete. 

6. The Four Provinces. 

90. The following Provisions of this Act respecting the Parliament 
of Canada, namely, — the Provisions relating to Appropriation and Tax 
Bills, the Recommendation of Money Votes, the Assent to Bills, the 
Disallowance of Acts, and the Signification of Pleasure on Bills re- 
served, — shall extend and apply to the Legislatures of the several 
Provinces as if those Provisions were here re-enacted and made appli- 
cable in Terms to the respective Provinces and the Legislatures thereof, 
with the Substitution of the Lieutenant Governor of the Province for 
the Governor General, of the Governor General for the Queen and for 
a Secretary of State, of One Year for Two Years, and of the Province 
for Canada. 

VL Distribution of Legislative Powers. Powers of the 
Parliament. 

91. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice and 
Consent of the Senate and House of Commons, to make Laws for the 
Peace, Order and good Government of Canada, in relation to all 
Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned 
exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces ; and for greater Cer- 
tainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing Terms 
of this Section, it is hereby declared that (notwithstanding anything 
in this Act) the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of 
Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects 
next hereinafter enumerated, that is to say : — 

I. The Public Debt and Property. 



The Regulation of Trade and Commerce. 

The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation. 

The borrowing of Money on the Public Credit. 

Postal Service. 

The Census and Statistics. 



458 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

7. Militia, Military and Naval Service, and Defence. 

8. The fixing of and providing for the Salaries and Allowances of 

Civil and other Ofificers of the Government of Canada. 

9. Beacons, Buoys, Lighthouses, and Sable Island. 
ID. Navigation and Shipping. 

11. Quarantine and the Establishment and Maintenance of Marine 

Hospitals. 

12. Sea Coast and Island Fisheries. 

13. Ferries between a Province and any British or Foreign Country or 

between Two Provinces. 

14. Currency and Coinage. 

15. Banking, Incorporation of Banks, and the issue of Paper Money. 

16. Savings Banks. 

17. Weights and Measures. 

18. Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes. 

19. Interest. 

20. Legal Tender. 

21. Bankruptcy and Insolvency. 

22. Patents of Invention and Discovery. 

23. Copyrights. 

24. Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians. 

25. Naturalization and Aliens. 

26. Marriage and Divorce. 

27. The Criminal Law, except the Constitution of Courts of Criminal 

Jurisdiction, but including the Procedure in Criminal Matters. 

28. The Estabhshment, Maintenance, and Management of Penitentiaries. 

29. Such Classes of Subjects as are expressly excepted in the Enu- 

meration of the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclu- 
sively to the Legislatures of the Provinces. 
And any Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects 
enumerated in this Section shall not be deemed to come within the 
Class of Matters of a local or private Nature comprised in the Enumer- 
ation of the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the 
Legislature of the Provinces. 

Exclusive Powers of Provincial Legislatjires. 

92. In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in ' 
relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next herein- 
after enumerated, that is to say : — 



APPENDIX A. 459 

1. The Amendment from Time to Time, notwithstanding anything 

in this Act, of the Constitution of the Province, except as 
regards the Office of Lieutenant Governor. 

2. Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of 

a Revenue for Provincial Purposes. 

3. The borrowing of Money on the sole Credit of the Province. 

4. The Establishment and Tenure of Provincial Offices and the 

Appointment and Payment of Provincial Officers. 

5. The Management and the Sale of the Public Lands belonging to 

the Province, and of the Timber and Wood thereon. 

6. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Public and 

Reformatory Prisons in and for the Province. 

7. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, 

Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for 
the Province, other than Marine Hospitals. 

8. Municipal Institutions in the Province. 

9. Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to 

the raising of a Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal 
Purposes. 

10. Local Works and Undertakings other than such as are of the 

following Classes : — 

a. Lines of Steam or other Ships, Railways, Canals, Telegraphs, 

and other Works and Undertakings connecting the Prov- 
ince with any other or others of the Provinces, or extend- 
ing beyond the Limits of the Province : 

b. Lines of Steam Ships between the Province and any British 

or Foreign Country. 

c. Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, 

are before or after their Execution declared by the Parlia- 
ment of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Two 
or more of the Provinces. 

11. The Incorporation of Companies with Provincial Objects. 

12. The Solemnization of Marriage in the Province. 

13. Property and Civil Rights in the Province. 

14. The Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Con- 

stitution, Maintenance and Organization of Provincial Courts, 
both of Civil and of Criminal Jurisdiction, and including Pro- 
cedure in Civil Matters in those Courts. 

15. The Imposition of Punishment by Fine, Penalty, or Imprisonment 



460 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

for enforcing any Law of the Province made in relation to any 

Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects enumerated 

in the Section. 

16. Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the 

Province. 

Edncatio7i . 

93. In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make 
Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following 
Provisions : — • 

(i) Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any right or 
Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any 
Class of Persons have by Law in the Province at the Union : 

(2) All the Powers, Privileges and Duties at the Union by Law con- 

ferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools 
and School Trustees of the Queen's Roman Catholic Subjects 
shall and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient 
Schools of the Queen's Protestant and Roman Catholic Sub- 
jects in Quebec. 

(3) Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient 

Schools exists by Law at the Union, or is thereafter established 
by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the 
Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any 
Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the 
Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the Queen's Subjects 
in relation to Education : 

(4) In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to 

the Governor General in Council requisite for the due Execu- 
tion of the Provisions of this Section is not made, or in case 
any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal 
under this Section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial 
Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as 
far only as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parlia- 
ment of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution 
of the Provisions of this Section and of any Decision of the 
Governor General in Council under this Section. 

U7iiformity of Laws in Ontario^ Nova Scotia and Ne-cv Brunswick.- 

94. Notwithstanding anything in this Act, the Parliament of Canada 
may make Provision for the Uniformity of all or of any of the Laws 



APPENDIX A. 461 

relative to Property and Civil Rights in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick, and of the Procedure of all or any of the Courts in those 
Three Provinces, and from and after the passing of any Act in that 
Behalf the Power of the Parliament of Canada to make Laws in relation 
to any Matter comprised in any such Act shall, notwithstanding any- 
thing in this Act, be unrestricted ; but any Act of the Parliament of 
Canada making Provision for each Uniformity shall not have effect in 
any Province unless and until it is adopted and enacted as Law by the 
Legislature thereof. 

Agriculture and Im?mgratzon. 

95. In each Province the Legislature may make Laws in relation to 
Agriculture in the Province, and to Immigration into the Province; 
and it is hereby declared that the Parliament of Canada may from 
Time to Time make Laws in relation to Agriculture in all or any of 
the Provinces, and to Immigration into all or any of the Provinces ; 
and any Law of the Legislature of a Province relative to Agriculture 
or to Immigration shall have effect in and for the Province as long 
and as far only as it is not repugnant to any Act of the Parliament 
of Canada. 

VII. Judicature. 

96. The Governor General shall appoint the Judges of the Superior, 
District, and County Courts in each Province, except those of the Courts 
of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 

97. Until the Laws relative to Property and Civil Rights in Ontario^ 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the Procedure of the Courts in 
those Provinces, are made uniform, the Judges of the Courts of those 
Provinces appointed by the Governor General shall be selected from 
the respective Bars of those Provinces. 

98. The Judges of the Courts of Quebec shall be selected from the 
Bar of that Province. 

99. The Judges of the Superior Courts shall hold office during good 
Behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on Address 
of the Senate and House of Commons. 

100. The Salaries, Allowances, and Pensions of the Judges of the 
Superior, District, and County Courts (except the Courts of Probate in 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), and of the Admiralty Courts in Cases 
where the Judges thereof are for the Time being paid by Salary, shall 
be fixed and provided by the Parliament of Canada. j^ 



462 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

loi. The Parliament of Canada may, notwithstanding anything in 
this Act, from Time to Time, provide for the Constitution, Maintenance, 
and Organization of a General Court of Appeal for Canada, and for the 
Establishment of any additional Courts for the better administration 
of the Laws of Canada. 

See as tj Salaries of Judges of Provincial Court, R. S. C, c. 138. 
As to General Court of Appeal for Canada, see R. S. C, c. 135. As 
to Exchequer Court, see 50-51 Vict. {Dojh ), c. 16. 

VIII. Revenues; Debts; Assets; Taxation. 

102. All Duties and Revenues over which the respective Legislatures 
of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick before and at the Union 
had and have Power of Appropriation, except such Portions thereof as 
are by this Act reserved to the respective Legislatures of the Provinces, 
or are raised by them in accordance with the special Powers conferred 
on them by this Act, shall form One Consolidated Revenue Fund, to 
be appropriated for the Public Service of Canada in the Manner and 
subject to the Charges in this Act provided. 

103. The Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada shall be perma- 
nently charged with the Costs, Charges, and Expenses incident to the 
Collection, Management, and Receipt thereof, and the same shall form 
the First Charge thereon, subject to be reviewed and audited in such 
Manner as shall be ordered by the Governor General in Council until 
the Parliament otherwise provides. 

104. The annual interest of the Public Debts of the several Prov- 
inces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick at the Union shall 
form the Second Charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada. 

105. Unless altered by the Parliament of Canada, the Salary of the 
Governor General shall be Ten Thousand Pounds Sterling Money 
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, payable out of 
the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada, and the same shall form 
the Third Charge thereon. 

106. Subject to the several payments by this Act, charged on the 
Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada, the same shall be appropriated 
by the Parliament of Canada for the Public Service. 

As t.-? Consolidated Revenjie Fujid, see R. S. C, c. 29. 

107. All Stocks, Cash, Banker's Balances, and Securities for Money 
belonging to each Province at the Time of the Union, except as in this 
Act mentioned, shall be the Property of Canada, and shall be taken 



APPENDIX A. 463 

in Reduction of the amount ot the respective Debts of the Provinces 
of the Union. 

108. The Public Works and Property of each Province, enumerated 
in the Third Schedule to this Act, shall be the Property of Canada. 

109. All Lands, Mines, Minerals, and Royalties belonging to the 
several Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick at the 
Union, and all Sums then due or payable for such Lands, Mines, Min- 
erals, or Royalties, shall belong to the several Provinces of Ontario, 
Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in which the same are situ- 
ate or arise, subject to any Trusts existing in respect thereof, and to 
any interest other than that of the Province in the same. 

no. All Assets connected with such Portions of the Public Debt 
of each Province as are assumed by that Province shall belong to that 
Province. 

111. Canada shall be liable for the Debts and Liabilities of each 
Province existing at the Union. 

112. Ontario and Quebec conjointly shall be liable to Canada for 
the Amount (if any) by which the Debt of the Province of Canada 
exceeds at the Union Sixty-two million five hundred thousand Dollars, 
and shall be charged with interest at the Rate of Five per Centum per 
Annum thereon. 

113. The Assets enumerated in the Fourth Schedule to this Act 
belonging at the Union to the Province of Canada shall be the Property 
of Ontario and Quebec conjointly. 

114. Nova Scotia shall be liable to Canada for the Amount (if any) 
by which its Public Debt exceeds at the Union Eight million Dollars, 
and shall be charged with Interest at the Rate of Five per Centum per 
Annum thereon. 

115. New Brunswick shall be liable to Canada for the Amount (if 
any) by which its Public Debt exceeds at the Union Seven million 
Dollars, and shall be charged with Interest at the Rate of Five per 
Centum per Annum thereon. 

116. In case the Public Debts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
do not at the Union amount to Eight million and Seven million Dollars 
respectively, they shall respectively receive by half-yearly Payments in 
advance from the Government of Canada interest at Five per Centum 
per Annum on the Difference between the actual Amounts of their 
respective Debts and such stipulated Amounts. 

/// addition to the %']'], ^00,000 provided J or in sections 112, 114, and 



464 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

115, the Dominion has since Confederation assumed $31,930,148 on 
acconjit of the Provinces. 

117. The several Provinces shall retain all their respective Public 
Property not otherwise disposed of in this Act, subject to the Right of 
Canada to assume any Lands or Public Property required for Fortifica- 
tions or for the Defence of the Country. 

118. The following Sums shall be paid yearly by Canada to the sev- 
eral Provinces for the Support of their Government and Legislatures. 

Ontario Eighty thousand Dollars. 

Quebec Seventy thousand Dollars. 

Nova Scotia Sixty thousand Dollars. 

New Brunswick .... Fifty thousand Dollars. 

Two hundred and sixty thousand ; and an annual Grant in aid of each 
Province shall be made, equal to Eighty Cents per Head of the Popu- 
lation as ascertained by the Census of One Thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-one, and in the case of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, by 
each subsequent Decennial Census until the Population of each of those 
two Provinces amounts to Four hundred thousand Souls, at which Rate 
such Grant shall thereafter remain. Such Grants shall be in full Set- 
tlement of all future Demands on Canada, and shall be paid half-vearly 
in advance to each Province ; but the Government of Canada shall 
deduct from such grants, as against any province, all Sutns chargeable 
as Interest on the Public Debt of that Province in excess of the several 
Amounts stipulated in this Act. 

119. New Brunswick shall receive by half-yearly Payments in advance 
from Canada for the Period of Ten Years from the Union, an Addi- 
tional Allowance of Sixty-three thousand Dollars per Annum ; but as 
long as the Public Debt of that Province remains under Seven million 
Dollars, a Deduction equal to the Interest at Five per Centum per 
Annum on such Deficiency shall be made from that Allowance of Sixty- 
three thousand Dollars. 

120. All Payments to be made under this Act, or in discharge of 
Liabilities created under any Act of the Provinces of Canada, Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick respectively and assumed by Canada, shall, 
until the Parliament of Canada otherwise directs, be made in such Form 
and Manner as may from Time to Time be ordered by the Governor 
General in Council. 

The present Act relating to subsidies to the provinces is R. S. C, c. 46. 



APPENDIX A. 465 

121. All Articles of the Growth, Produce or Manufacture of any one 
of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into 
each of the other Provinces. 

122. The Customs and Excise Laws of each Province shall, subject 
to the Provisions of this Act, continue in force until altered by the Par- 
liament of Canada. 

These matters have been legislated upon by the Dominion. See 
R. S. C, chaps. 32, 33, 34. 

123. Where Customs Duties are, at the Union, leviable on any 
Goods, Wares, or Merchandises in any two Provinces, those Goods, 
Wares, and Merchandises may, from and after the Union, be imported 
from one of those Provinces into the other of them on Proof of Payment 
of the Customs Duty leviable thereon in the Province of Exportation 
and on Payment of such further Amount (if any) of Customs Duty as 
is leviable thereon in the Province of Importation. 

124. Nothing in this Act shall affect the Right of New Brunswick 
to levy the Lumber Dues provided in Chapter Fifteen of Title Three of 
the Revised Statutes of New Brunswick, or in any Act amending that 
Act before or after the Union, and not increasing the Amount of such 
Dues ; but the Lumber of any of the Provinces other than New Bruns- 
wick shall not be subject to such Dues. 

JVeiv Brunswick having surretidered these lumber dues, the Dominion 
pays that Province $150,000 a year additional. R. S. C, c. 46, s. i. 

125. No Lands or Property belonging to Canada or any Province 
shall be liable to Taxation. 

126. Such Portions of the Duties and Revenues over which the 
respective Legislatures of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
had before the Union Power of Appropriation as are by this Act 
reserved to the respective Governments or Legislatures of the Provinces, 
and all Duties and Revenues raised by them in accordance with the 
special Powers conferred upon them by this Act, shall in each Province 
form One Consolidated Revenue Fund to be appropriated for the Public 
Service of the Province 

IX. Miscellaneous Provisions. 
General. 

127. If any Person being at the passing of this Act a Member of the 
Legislative Council of Canada, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, to whom 

2 H 



466 * A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

a Place in the Senate is offered, does not within Thirty Days thereafter, 
by Writing under his Hand addressed to the Governor General of the 
Province of Canada, to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia or 
New^ Brunswick (as the case may be), accept the same, he shall be 
deemed to have declined the same ; and any Person who, being, at the 
passing of this Act, a Member of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia 
or New Brunswick, accepts a Place in the Senate, shall thereby vacate 
his Seat in such Legislative Council. 

128. Every Member of the Senate or House of Commons of Canada 
shall, before taking his seat therein, take and subscribe before the Gov- 
ernor General or some Person authorized by him, and every Member 
of a Legislative Council or Legislative Assembly of any Province shall 
before taking his Seat therein take and subscribe before the Lieutenant 
Governor of the Province or some Person authorized by him, the Oath 
of Allegiance contained in the Fifth Schedule to this Act ; and every 
Member of the Senate of Canada and every Member of the Legislative 
Council of Quebec shall also, before taking his Seat therein, take and 
subscribe before the Governor-General, or some Person authorized by 
him, the Declaration of Qualification contained in the same Schedule. 

129. Except as otherwise provided by this Act, all Laws in force in 
Canada, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick at the Union, and all Courts 
of Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction, and all legal Commissions, Powers 
and Authorities, and all Offices, Judicial, Administrative, and Ministe- 
rial, existing therein at the Union, shall continue in Ontario, Quebec, 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick respectively, as if the Union had not 
been made ; subject nevertheless (except with respect to such as are 
enacted by or exist under Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of 
the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), 
to be repealed, abolished, or altered by the Parliament of Canada, or 
by the Legislature of the respective Province according to the Authority 
of the Parliament or of that Legislature under this Act. 

130. Until the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, all Officers 
of the several Provinces having Duties to discharge in relation to Mat- 
ters other than those coming within the classes of Subjects by this Act 
assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces shall be 
Officers of Canada, and shall continue to discharge the Duties of their 
respective Offices under the same Liabilities, Responsibilities, and Pen- 
alties as if the Union had not been made. 

131. Until the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, the Gov- 



APPENDIX A. 467 

ernor General in Council may from Time to Time appoint such Officers 
as the Governor General in Council deems necessary or proper for the 
effectual Execution of this Act. 

132. The Parliament and Government of Canada shall have all 
Powers necessary or proper for performing the Obligations of Canada 
or of any Province thereof, as Part of the British Empire, towards For- 
eign Countries, arising under Treaties between the Empire and such 
Foreign Countries. 

133. Either the English or the French Language may be used by 
any Person in the Debates of the Houses of the Parliament of Canada 
and of the Houses of the Legislature of Quebec ; and both those Lan- 
guages shall be used in the respective Records and Journals of those 
Houses ; and either of those Languages may be used by any Person or 
in any Pleading or Process in or issuing from any Court of Canada 
established under this Act, and in or from all or any of the Courts of 
Quebec. 

The acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of 
Quebec shall be printed and published in both those Languages. 

Ontario and Quebec. 

134. Until the Legislature of Ontario or of Quebec otherwise pro- 
vides, the Lieutenant Governors of Ontario and Quebec may each 
appoint, under the Great Seal of the Province, the following Officers, 
to hold Office during Pleasure, that is to say, — the Attorney General, 
the Secretary and Registrar of the Province, the Treasurer of the 
Province, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and the Commissioner of 
Agriculture and Public Works, and, in the Case of Quebec, the Solicitor 
General ; and may, by Order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, 
from Time to Time iDrescribe the Duties of those Officers and of the 
several Departments over which they shall preside or to which they 
shall belong, and of the Officers and Clerks thereof; and may also 
appoint other and additional Officers to hold Office during Pleasure, 
and may from Time to Time prescribe the Duties of those Officers, 
and of the several Departments over which they shall preside or to 
which they shall belong, and of the Officers and Clerks thereof. 

The Ontario Civil Service Act is R. S. O., 1887, c. 14. 

135. Until the Legislature of Ontario or Quebec otherwise provides, 
all Rights, Powers, Duties, Functions, Responsibilities, or Authorities 
at the passing of this Act vested in or imposed on the Attorney Gen- 



468 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

eral, Solicitor General, Secretary and Registrar of the Province of 
Canada, Minister of Finance, Commissioner of Crown Lands, Commis- 
sioner of Public Works, and Minister of Agriculture and Receiver 
General, by any Law, Statute or Ordinance of Upper Canada, Lower 
Canada, or Canada, and not repugnant to this Act, shall be vested in 
or imposed on any Officer to be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor 
for the Discharge of the same or any of them ; and the Commissioner 
of Agriculture and Public Works shall perform tlie Duties and Func- 
tions of the Office of Minister of Agriculture at the passing of this Act 
imposed by the Law of the Province of Canada, as well as those of the 
Commissioner of Public Works. 

136. Related to use of Great Seals of Upper and Lower Canada^ 
Ojitario and Quebec temporarily . Effete. 

137. Related to use of words " next Session " as applied to Acts cur- 
rent at tifue of Union. Effete. 

138. From and after the Union the Use of the Words "Upper 
Canada" instead of "Ontario," or "Lower Canada" instead of "Que- 
bec," in any Deed, Writ, Process, Pleading, Document, Matter, or 
Thing, shall not invalidate the same. 

139. Any Proclamation under the Great Seal of the Province of 
Canada issued before the Union to take effect at a Time which is sub- 
sequent to the Union, whether relating to that Province or to Upper 
Canada, or to Lower Canada, and the several Matters and Things 
therein proclaimed shall be and continue of like Force and Effect as if 
the Union had not been made. 

140. Any Proclamation which is authorized by any Act of the Legis- 
lature of the Province of Canada to be issued under the Great Seal of 
the Province of Canada, whether relating to that Province, or to Upper 
Canada, or to Lower Canada, and which is not issued before the Union, 
may be issued by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario or of Quebec, as 
its Subject Matter requires, under the Great Seal thereof; and from, and 
after the Lssue of such Proclamation, the same and the several Matters 
and Things therein proclaimed shall be and continue of the like Force 
and Effect in Ontario or Quebec as if the Union had not been made. 

141. Related to Fenitetitiary of old Province of Caftada. See fiow 
R. S. C, c. 182. 

142. The Division and Adjustment of the Debts, Credits, Liabilities, 
Properties and Assets of Upper Canada and Lower Canada shall be 
referred to the Arbitrament of Three Arbitrators, One chosen by the 



APPENDIX A. 469 

Government of Ontario, One by the Government of Quebec, and One 
by the Government of Canada ; and the Selection of the Arbitrators 
shall not be made until the Parliament of Canada and the Legislatures 
of Ontario and Quebec have met : and the Arbitrator chosen by the 
Government of Canada shall not be a Resident either in Ontario or in 
Quebec. 

143. The Governor General in Council may from Time to Time 
order that such and so many of the Records, Books and Documents 
of the Province of Canada as he thinks fit shall be appropriated and 
delivered either to Ontario or to Quebec, and the same shall thence- 
forth be the Property of that Province ; and any Copy thereof or 
Extract therefrom, duly certified by the Officer having charge of the 
Original thereof, shall be admitted as Evidence. 

144. The Lieutenant Governor of Quebec may from Time to Time, 
by Proclamation under the Great Seal of the Province, to take effect 
from a day to be appointed therein, constitute Townships in those 
Parts of the Province of Quebec in which Townships are not then 
already constituted, and fix the Metes and Bounds thereof. 

X. Intercolonial Railw^ay. 

145. Related to building of Intercolonial Railway. The Railway 
was built as required. The section is therefore effete. 

XI. Admission of Other Colonies. 

146. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice of 
Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, on Addresses from the 
Houses of the Parliament of Canada, and from the Houses of the 
respective Legislatures of the Colonies or Provinces, of Newfoundland, 
Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, to admit those Colonies 
or Provinces, or any of them, into the Union, and on Address from the 
Houses of the Parliament of Canada to admit Rupert's Land and the 
North-western Territory, or either of them, into the Union, on such 
Terms and Conditions in each Case as are in the Addresses expressed 
and as the Queen thinks fit to approve, subject to the Provisions of this 
Act ; and the Provisions of any Order in Council in that Behalf shall 
have effect as if they had been enacted by the Parliament of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

Under the authority conferred by this section the following Provinces 
have been adjnitted to the Dominion : — 



470 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Manitoba and Northwest Territories., 15th July, 1870. 

British Columbia., 20th July, 1871. 

Prince Edward Island, ist July, 1873. 

147. In case of the Admission of Newfoundland and Prince Edward 
Island, or either of them, each shall be entitled to a Representation in 
the Senate of Canada of Four Members, and (notwithstanding any- 
thing in this Act) in case of the admission of Newfoundland, the 
normal Number of Senators shall be Seventy-six and their maximum 
Number shall be Eighty-two ; but Prince Edward Island when ad- 
mitted shall be deemed to be comprised in the third of the Three 
Divisions into which Canada is, in relation to the Constitution of the 
Senate, divided by this Act, and accordingly, after the Admission of 
Prince Edward Island, whether Newfoundland is admitted or not, the 
Representation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the Senate shall, 
as Vacancies occur, be reduced from Twelve to Ten Members, respec- 
tively, and the Representation of each of those Provinces shall not be 
increased at any Time beyond Ten, except under the Provisions of this 
Act for the Appointment of Three or Six additional Senators under the 
Direction of the Queen. 

See note to Section 11 above. 



SCHEDULES. 

The First Schedule and the Second Schedide related to the original 
Electoral Divisiotis, which have since been altered from time to time as 
provided for in Section 5 1 of the Act. 

The Third Schedule. 
Provincial Public Works and Property to be the Property of Canada. 

1. Canals, with Lands and Water Power connected therewith. 

2. Public Harbors. 

3. Lighthouses and Piers, and Sable Island. 

4. Steamboats, Dredges, and public Vessels. 

5. Rivers and Lake Improvements. 

6. Railways and Railway Stocks, Mortgages, and other Debts due 

by Railway Companies. 

7. Military Roads. 

8. Custom Houses, Post Offices, and all other Public Buildings, 



APPENDIX A. 471 

except such as the Government of Canada appropriate for the 
Use of the Provincial Legislatures and Governments. 
9. Property transferred by the Imperial Government, and known as 

Ordinance Property. 
10. Armories, Drill Sheds, Military Clothing, and Munitions of War, 
and Lands set apart for General Public Purposes. 

The Fourth Schedule. 

Assets to be Property of Ontario and Quebec conjointly. 

Upper Canada Building Fund. 
Lunatic Asylum. 
Normal School. 
Court Houses, ~ 

in 
Aylmer. r Lower Canada. 

Montreal. 
Kamouraska. 
Law Society, Upper Canada. 
Montreal Turnpike Trust. 
University Permanent Fund. 
Royal Institution. 

Consolidated Municipal Loan Fund, Upper Canada. 
Consolidated Municipal Loan Fund, Lower Canada. 
Agricultural Society, Upper Canada. 
Lower Canada Legislative Grant. 
Quebec Fire Loan. 
Temiscouata Advance Account. 
Quebec Turnpike Trust. 
Education — East. 

Building and Jury Fund, Lower Canada. 
Municipalities Fund. 
Lower Canada Superior Education Income Fund. 

The Fifth Schedule. 

Oath of Allegiance. 

I, A. B., do swear. That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance 
to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. 



4/2 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

Note. — The Afame of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland for the Time being is to be substituted from 
Time to Time., with proper Terms of Reference thereto. 

Declaration of Qualification. 

I, A. B., do declare and testify, That I am by Law duly qualified to 
be appointed a Member of the Senate of Canada [or as the Case may 
be'], and that I am legally or equitably seized as of Freehold for my 
own Use and Benefit of Lands and Tenements held in Free and 
Common Socage [or seized or possessed for my own Use and Benefit 
of Lands or Tenements held in Franc aleu or in Roture (as the Case 
may bey\, in the Province of Nova Scotia \or as the Case may be], 
of the Value of Four Thousand Dollars over and above all Rents, 
Dues, Debts, Mortgages, Charges, and Incumbrances due or payable 
out of or charged on or affecting the same, and that I have not col- 
lusively or colorably obtained a Title to or become possessed of the 
said Lands and Tenements or any Part thereof for the Purpose of 
enabling me to become a Member of the Senate of Canada [or as the 
Case 7nay be], and that my Real and Personal Property are together 
worth Four thousand Dollars over and above my Debts and Liabilities. 

Appendix A. 

An Act respecting the establishment of Provinces in the Dominion 

of Canada. 

Imperial Act, 34 and 35 I'ict.. c. 28. 

2gtk ftiiie, 1S71. 

Whereas doubts have been entertained respecting the powers of the 
Parliament of Canada to establish Provinces in Territories admitted, or 
which may be hereafter admitted into the Dominion of Canada, and to 
provide for the representation of such Provinces in the said Parliament, 
and it is expedient to remove such doubts, and to vest such powers in 
the said Parliament : — 

Be it enacted, by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with 
the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and 
Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority 
of the same, as follows : — 



APPENDIX A. 473 

1. This Act may be cited for all purposes as "The British North 
America Act, 1871." 

2. The Parliament of Canada may, from time to time, establish new 
Provinces in any Territories forming for the time being part of the 
Dominion of Canada, but not included in any Province thereof, and 
may, at the time of such establishment, make provision for the consti- 
tution and administration of any Province, and for the passing of laws 
for the peace, order and good government of such Province, and for its 
representation in the said Parliament. 

3. The Parhament of Canada may, from Time to Time, with the 
consent of the Legislature of any Province of the said Dominion, in- 
crease, diminish or otherwise alter the limits of such Province, upon 
such terms and conditions as may be agreed to by the said Legislature, 
and may, with the like consent, make provision respecting the effect and 
operation of any such increase or diminution or alteration of Territory 
in relation to any Province affected thereby. 

4. The Parliament of Canada may, from time to time, make pro- 
vision for the administration, peace, order and good government of any 
Territory not for the time being included in any Province. 

5. The following Acts passed by the said Parliament of Canada, 
and intituled respectively : " An Act for the temporary government 
" of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory when, united with 
" Canada," and " An Act to amend and continue the Act 32 and 33 
" Victoria, chapter 3, and to establish and provide for the Government 
" of the Province of Manitoba," shall be and be deemed to have been 
valid and effectual for all purposes whatsoever from the date at which 
they respectively received the assent, in the Queen's name, of the Gover- 
nor General of the said Dominion of Canada. 

6. Except as provided by the third Section of this Act, it shall not 
be competent for the Parliament of Canada to alter the provisions of 
the last mentioned Act of the said Parliament, in so far as it relates to 
the Province of Manitoba, or of any other Act hereafter establishing 
new Provinces in the said Dominion, subject always to the right of the 
Legislature of the Province of Manitoba to alter from time to time the 
provisions of any law respecting the qualifications of Electors and 
members of the Legislative Assembly, and to make laws respecting 
elections in the same Province. 



474 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 



Appendix B. 

An Act to remove certain doubts with respect to the powers of the 
Parliament of Canada, under Section i8 of the British North Amer- 
ica Act, 1867. 

Imperial Act, 38 and 39 Vict., c-. 38. 

i.gth July, 1875. 

Whereas, by section eighteen of the British North America Act, 
1867, it is provided as follows : — 

" The privileges, immunities and powers to be held, enjoyed and 
"exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the 
" members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time 
" defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, but so that the same 
" shall never exceed those at the passing of this Act, held, enjoyed and 
" exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United King- 
" dom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof." 

And, whereas doubts have arisen with regard to the power of defin- 
ing by an Act of the Parliament of Canada, in pursuance of the said 
section, the said privileges, powers or immunities ; and it is expedient 
to remove such doubts : — 

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by 
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, 
and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the au- 
thority of the same, as follows : — 

1. Section eighteen of the British North America Act, 1867, is 
hereby repealed, without prejudice to anything done under that Sec- 
tion, and the following section shall be substituted for the Section so 
repealed : 

The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed and 
exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the 
members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time 
defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, but so that any Act of the 
Parliament of Canada defining such privileges, immunities and powers 
shall not confer any privileges, immunities or powers exceeding those 
at the passing of such Act held, enjoyed and exercised by the Commons 
House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, and by the members thereof. 

2. The Act of the Parliament of Canada, passed in the thirty-first 



APPENDIX A. 475 

year of the Reign of Her present Majesty, Chapter twenty-four, in- 
tituled : " An Act to provide for oatlis to witnesses ' being administered 
" in certain cases for the purposes of either House of Parliament,'" shall 
be deemed to be valid, and to have been valid as from the date at 
which the Royal assent was given thereto by the Governor General of 
the Dominion of Canada. 

3. This Act maybe cited as "the Parliament of Canada Act, 1875." 

Appendix C. 

An Act respecting the Representatives in the Parliament of Canada of 
Territories which for the time being form part of the Dominion of 
Canada, but are not included in any Province. 

Imperial Act. 

z^tk June, 1886. 

Whereas it is expedient to empower the Parliament of Canada to 
provide for the representation in the Senate and House of Commons 
of Canada, or either of them, of any Territory which for the time being 
forms part of the Dominion of Canada, but is not included in any 
Province. 

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by 
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 
and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
authority of the same, as follows : — 

1. The Parliament of Canada may from time to time make provision 
for the representation in the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, 
or in either of them, of any Territories which for the time being form 
part of the Dominion of Canada, but are not included in any Province 
thereof. 

2. Any Act passed by the Parliament of Canada before the passing 
of this Act for the purpose mentioned in this Act shall, if not disallowed 
by the Queen, be, and shall be deemed to have been, valid and eflfectual 
from the date at which it received the assent, in Her Majesty's name, 
of the Governor General of Canada. 

It is hereby declared that any Act passed by the Parliament of 
Canada, whether before or after the passing of this Act, for the purpose 
mentioned in this Act or in the British North America Act, 1871, has 
effect, notwithstanding anything in the British North America Act, 
1867, and the number of Senators or the number of members of the 



476 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

House of Commons specified in the last mentioned Act is increased by 
the number of Senators or of members, as the case may be, provided 
by any such Act of the Parliament of Canada for the representation of 
any Provinces or Territories of Canada. 

3. This Act may be cited as " The British North America Act, 
1886." 

This Act and the British North America Act, 1867, and the British 
North America Act, 1871, shall be construed together and may be 
cited together as "The British North America Acts, 1867 to 1886." 



APPENDIX B. 



THE MOST IMPORTANT INDIAN TRIBES OF CANADA. 

The Indian tribes which have figured most prominently in the history 
of Canada are to be classified under two great families or stocks, the 
Iroquois and the Algonquin. Of these the most powerful, most aggres- 
sive, most advanced in development and in tribal organization, were 
members of the Iroquois family ; while the Algonquin tribes were the 
most numerous and most widely distributed. 

Algonquin Stock. 

Those Indians occupying the eastern seaboard of Canada, with whom 
the early explorers came first in contact, were of the Algonquin stock. 
In the Acadian peninsula and on the Gulf coast were the Micmacs. 
In the valley of the St. John River dwelt the Melisites ; and to the west 
of these ruled the fierce and powerful tribe of the Abenakis, occupying 
territory which is now the State of Maine. On the north shore of the 
Lower St. Lawrence were the Montagnais. From the Montagnais 
westward extended the Algonquins proper, the tribe which gives its 
name to all the group. This tribe occupied most of Quebec, and a 
large portion of Ontario. It came early under French control, and was 
peculiarly an object of Iroquois hostility, although it had the firm alli- 
ance and support of the Hurons, a powerful member of the Iroquois 
group. The Ojibways were a numerous tribe, dwelling in Ontario. 
The Shawnees, who came into Canada from the south, and played a 
brief but brilliant part under the leadership of their famous chief, 
Tecumseh, belonged to the Algonquin stock. Prominent in our early 
history, though not dwelling on what is now Canadian soil, were the 
great Algonquin tribe of the Illinois, with their kindred, the Sacs and 

477 



4/8 A HISTORY OF CANADA. 

the Pottawatomis. A numerous tribe of the same family is that of the 
Crees, distributed over the whole North-west from Hudson Bay to the 
Rockies. These people were conspicuous in the Saskatchewan rebel- 
lion. Along the Rockies, from the Saskatchewan southward, spread 
the Blackfeet, another influential branch of this stock. The Algonquins, 
in general, though ranking lower than the Iroquois, stand high in rela- 
tion to the other Indian families. 

Iroquois Stock. 

Of this family the dominant tribes were those known as the Iroquois, 
or Five Nations, a confederation skilfully organized and sagaciously 
conducted. It was not alone their warlike prowess — their courage, 
swiftness, and relentlessness — that made their name a living fear from 
the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Their command of the arts of policy 
and diplomacy was no small part of their strength. They were far- 
seeing enough to adopt a definite policy, and sufficiently stable to 
follow it out through successive generations. Their shrewdness and 
steadiness of purpose thus enabled them for a long time to hold a sort 
of balance of power between the French and English colonies, and 
gained them a degree of consideration never paid to any other Indians. 
The five tribes making up the Iroquois Confederacy were the Mohawks, 
occupying the Lake Champlain region, and extending eastward nearly 
to the land of the Abenakis ; the Oneidas, lying immediately west of 
the Mohawks ; the Onondagas, in the centre, holding the main lodge 
and council fire of the Confederacy ; the Cayugas, south of the eastern 
end of Lake Ontario ; and the Senecas, on the western flank of the 
Confederacy, occupying the Niagara district. To this league was 
afterwards added a kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras, which migrated 
northward from North Carolina ; and thenceforward the Confederacy 
Avas known as the Six Nations. Immediately west of the Senecas dwelt 
the Neutral Nation, so called, whose neutrality did not save them from 
ultimate destruction by their all-conquering kindred. Another tribe of 
this stock, the fierce Eries, or " Wild Cats," suffered the same fate as the 
Neutrals, when they were so unhappy as to cross the path and purposes 
of the Five Nations. The habitat of the Eries was south of the great 
lake to which they have left their name. Especially conspicuous 
throughout the earlier history of Canada was the great tribe of the 
Hurons, or Wyandots, occupying the fertile regions east and south of 
Georgian Bay. Here they had populous villages and well-tilled fields ; 



AIPENDIX B. 479 

and they dwelt in firm alliance with the French as well as with the 
neighboring Algonquin tribes, till the flame of Iroquois hate devoured 
them. In courage, in organization and development, and in language, 
they were so like their triumphant kinsfolk that these latter were always 
ready to adopt them into their own tribal organizations. Indeed, the 
avowed object of the Iroquois in one of their most devastating wars 
was to force the Hurons into union with certain of their tribes, whose 
ranks had become depleted. Unlike most Indians, those of the Iro- 
quois family do not deteriorate or die out when brought in contact 
with civilization. They are almost as numerous at the present day 
as they were when their power was at its height ; they can point to 
self-supporting and prosperous communities as evidence of their capacity 
for civilization ; and individual members of these communities have 
pushed their way to prominence in various walks of modern life. 

There are many Indian tribes in Canada which belong to neither of 
the above great families, but few of these have played any notable part 
in our story. Of the great Dakota family, we have the Assiniboines, 
and those " Iroquois of the west," the Sioux. These latter, having 
their home in Minnesota and the Dakotas, have at times moved over 
the border and given concern to our Indian Department. The Assini- 
boines, dwelling on the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan rivers, are 
second only to the Crees in importance among the tribes of our 
North-west. 

To the north of the Crees and Assiniboines we come upon a tribe 
called the Chippewyans, belonging to the Athabascan stock. Of 
this stock also are other North-west tribes, such as the Dog-Ribs, 
Yellow-Knives, and Sarsi. The most famous and most formidable 
member of the Athabascan stock is the great Apache nation, whose 
implacable ferocity is, fortunately for us, confined to a sphere far south 
of the Canadian borders. 



INDEX. 



Abbot, Sir John, premier, 409. 

Abenakis, the, 67. 

Abercrombie, General, 138, 145, 146, 147. 

Acadie, 23, 27, 44, 46, 57, 96, 104, 105, no. 

Acadians, 112, 126. 

Acadian expulsion, 128, 129; settlement 

on Gulf coast, 179. 
Acco7nmodation, steamboat, 223. 
Act of Union, 305. 
"Admirals, the Fishing," 31. 
Agricola, 277. 
Agriculture, 433. 
Ainslie, General, 287. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 120, 121. 
Albert, Prince, 341. 
Alberta, 386. 

Alabama claims, 348, 360, 371. 
Alaska, 410. 
Allan Line, the, 432. 
Allen, Colonel Ethan, 186. 
Alma, the, 325. 
Alleghanies, 137. 
Alleghany River, 121. 
Albanel, Father, 82. 
Algonquin plot, 41. 
Alexander, Sir William, 46. 
America, discovery of, 6. 
American privateers, 193. 
American plan of campaign, 226; plan 

of secession, 339; hostility, 347; and 

Canadian federations, 352 ; poaching 

on Canadian fisheries, 360. 
Americans driven out of Canada, 188. 
Amerigo Vespucci, 6. 

21 <; 



Amherst, General, 143, 144, 145, 161. 

Ancient colony, the, 253, 289. 

Angell, James B., 406. 

Annapolis Royal, 109, 112, 116, 129. 

Annexation of Canada proposed, 225, 

439- 
Appropriation Bill, 218. 
Arnold, Colonel Benedict, 186. 
Army of the North, 226 ; of the Centre, 

227; of the West, 227. 
Archibald, Adams G., 279, 342, 366. 
Arthur, Sir George, 301. 
Aroostook War, 314. 
Argall, Samuel, 30. 
Art in Canada, 427, 428. 
Artists, Canadian, 427, 428. 
Ashburton, Lord, 314. 
Associated Merchants of St. Malo and 

Rouen, 39. 
Association of the Grand Council of 

Plymouth, 46. 
Assiniboine, 113. 
Assiniboia, 256, 257, 330, 386. 
Athabasca River, 114, 386. 
Austrian succession, 115. 
Avalon, 32, 289. 
Aylmer, Lord, 266. 



B. 



Bank fisheries, the, 7. 
Bale des Chaleurs, 9. 
Bacchus, Isle of, 11. 
Baltimore, Lord, 32. 
Bay of Famine, 88. 
Batoche, 388, 391, 396. 



482 



INDEX. 



Battleford, 391, 394. 
Baldoon, 219. 

Baltic timber duties repealed, 283. 
Battle of the fleets on Lake Ontario, 241. 
Back, George, 257. 
Baldwin, Robert, 274, 298, 309. 
Bagot, Sir Charles, 309. 
Bayard, 406. 

Banking system, Canadian, 434. 
Baring, Hon. Mr., 314. 
Baker's raid on Madawaska, 312. 
Baldwin-Lafontaine, 338. 
Beauharnois, Marquis de, 113. 
Beauharnois militia, 244; county, 296. 
Beausejour, Fort, 125, 127. 
Beaubassin, 125. 
Beaujeu, 133. 
Beauport stream, 150. 
Beaver Dam, 240. 
Beorn, 3. 

Bering Sea dispute, 409, 410. 
Bell, Graham, 435. 
Better Terms, 359. 
Berlin Decrees, 220. 
Biencourt, 28, 47. 
Biard, Father, 28. 
Bigot, 141, 142. 
Big Bear, 388, 392. 
Bibaud, 424. 

Bishop of Nova Scotia, first, 217. 
Bishopp, Colonel, 233. 
Bidwell, Marshall, 274, 298. 
Blake, Hon. Edward, 409. 
Blackfeet, 388. 
Blaine-Bond Treaty, 415. 
Black Rock, 241. 
Blanchard, Richard, 330. 
Bloody Bridge, 175. 
Boerstler, Colonel, 240. 
Bonsecour Market, 321. 
Bonavista, 106. 
Bond, Hon. Robert, 415. 
Boscawen, Admiral, 143. 
" Boston Tea Party," 185. 
Boucher, 72. 

Boundary disputes, 121, 125. 
Boundary of Canada, southern, 193 ; be- 
tween Maine and Nova Scotia, 193. 
Bourlamaque, 138, 148, 149. 
Bourinot, J. G., 425. 



Bouquet, Colonel Henry, 175. 

Boulton, Solicitor-General, 274. 

Braddock, General, 132, 133, 134. 

Bradstreet, 147, 175. 

Brant, Joseph, 133, 201. 

Brant, Molly, 133. 

Brandywine, 190. 

Brandy duty, dispute over the, 278. 

Breboeuf, Father,'4i, 60, 65. 

Breda, Treaty of, 58. 

British Columbia, 19, 330, 331, 332, 334, 

368,369,378,411. 
British troops and Colonial militia, 184. 
British North America Act, 345, 350. 
British North American League, 319. 
Brock, General Sir Isaac, 223, 227, 230, 

232. 
Brockville, raid on, 236. 
Broke, Captain, 246. 
Brownstown, 228. 
Brown, Stowell, 293. 
Brown, George, 337, 341, 343, 344. 
Brown-Dorion government, 338. 
Burrard Inlet, 401. 
Bushy Run, 175. 
Bushland, 3. 
Bunker Hill, 186. 
Burgoyne, General, 190. 
Burlington Heights, 239. 
Buffalo burned, 246. 
Burton, Sir Francis, 264. 
-Byron, Commodore, 179. 
Bytown, 258. 

C. 

Canada, 2, 18, 44, 162, 258, 437, 438 ; and 
Acadia, 51 ; and New England, 67 ; 
invaded, 185 ; new constitution of, 307 ; 
constitution of, 350; confederated, 354 ; 
purchases North-west, 361 ; at the Cen- 
tennial, 379 ; " for the Canadians," 379 ; 
Upper and Lower, 210 ; Upper, popu- 
lation of, 211, 269, 297; Lower, 221, 
261, 291, 296; population of, in 1812, 
226 ; population of, 165 ; Lower, popu- 
lation of, 211 ; Lower, first Parliament, 
213 ; differences in institutions of Up- 
per and Lower, 211. 

Canada Company, the, 258. 

Canada-Pacific, the, 373. 



INDEX. 



483 



Canada Trade Act, 264. 

Canada Committee, the, 265. 

Canadas, scheme for uniting the, 264 ; 

united, 305 ; coalition in the, 341. 
Canadian history, i, 2 ; pubhc school 

system, 419, 420 ; universities, 420, 421 ; 

squadron in Ontario, 215 ; newspaper, 

the, 222 ; Reign of Terror, 222 ; brigs 

captured on Lake Erie, 229. 
Canadian Fencibles, 235. 
Canadian Pacific Railway, 400, 401, 402. 
Canadian, the, 432. 
Canadians in Egypt, 403. 
Cabots, the, 6, 7. 

Cartier, Jaques, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15. 
Cartier, Sir George, 337, 343, 344, 375. 
Cartier-Macdonald government, 338. 
Caron, Father le, 36. 
Carhagouha, 38. 

Carignan-Saliferes, regiment of, 78. 
Carbonear, 106. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, 187, 191, 197, 209. 
Carleton, 389. 

Carleton, Colonel Thomas, 199, 209, 218. 
Caroline, destruction of the, 300. 
Carter, F. B. S., 344. 
Carnarvon Terms, 378. 
Casco Bay, gg. 
Casgrain, Abbe, 424. 
Casual and territorial revenue, 213, 263^ 

266. 
Castine fund, 251. 
Catholic and Huguenot, 40. 
Cape Breton, 48, loi, ill, 145, 199, 286, 

287. 
Cap Rouge, 151, 154. 
Cape Diamond, 157. 
Calli&res, 97, 107. 
Cataracoui, 82, 85, 87. 
Canso, 112. 
Calgary, 393. 
Canals, 430, 431. 
Cable, 435. 
Cahokia, 176. 

Campaign of 1813, 235 ; of 1814, 248. 
Caldwell, Sir John, 264. 
Campbell, General Sir Archibald, 284. 
Campbell, Sir Colin, 315,316. 
Campbell, Sir Alexander, 344, 406. 
Caughnawaga, 297. 



Cathcart, Lord, 310. 

Cabinet or executive, 351. 

Censitaires, the, 75. 

Celoron de Bienville, 121. 

Cedars, the, 189. 

Charlesbourg Royal, 16. 

Champlain, 22, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 

39. 40, 43. 44. 45. 423- 
Champlain, Lake, 138, 145. 
Chastes, Aymar de, 22. 
Chaudifere, 36. 

Charnisay, Seigneur d'Aulnay, 51, 52, 53, 
■ 54.55,56. 

Chaumonat, Father, 68. 
Chambly, Fort, 79., 
Chamberlain, Hon. Jos., 406. 
Chauveau, P. J. O., 426, 427. 
Chapais, J. C, 344. 
Chauncey, Commodore, 237. 
Chateauguay, 244. 
Charlottetown conference, 342. 
Charlottetown, 180. 
Chandler, Edward, 344. 
Chandler, Senator, 360. 
Chateau St. Louis, 344. 
Chignecto, 95, 121. 
Chignecto Ship Railway, 429. 
Chebucto Bay, 119, 123. 
Christie, Robert, 425. 
Charlevoix, 423. 
Charleston, igi. 
Chippewa, 233, 239, 248. 
Chrysler's Farm, 245. 
Cholera years, the, 259. 
Chenier, Doctor, 294. 
Chinook, 362. 
Chicago fire, the, 372. 
Civil list, 262. 

City of Boston, loss of, 366. 
Clinton, Sir Henry, 191. 
Clark, Colonel, 241. 
Clergy Reserves, the, 270, 323. 
Clermont, the, 432. 
Columbus, 4, 5, 6. 
Columbia, the, 256. 
Cortereal, 8. 

Convicts on Sable Island, 20. 
Conception Bay Colony, 31. 
Colbert, 72, 76. 
Coureurs des Bois, 78. 



484 



INDEX. 



Come, Le, 125. 

Cornwallis, Hon. Edward, 123, 191. 

C3te, Ste. Genevieve, 158. 

County of Sunbury, 180. 

Colonies, the, 182. 

Colonial Advocate, 272 ; grievances, 183 ; 

office, the, 265, 275 ; conference, 411, 

412. 
Continental Congress, 185, 186. 
Cowpens, 191. 
Constitutional act, 210, 213. 
Confederation, 209, 262, 304, 319, 325, 329, 

335, 337. 355- 
College, University of King's, 217. 
Constitution, the, 234. 
Cochran, Admiral, 251. 
Cook, Captain, 255. 
Coppermine River, 257. 
Commission of Inquiry, 268. 
Colborne, Sir John, 296. 
Conservative, 308. 
Colebrook, Sir William, 317. 
Corn Laws repealed, 322. 
Cockburn, J., 344. 
Coal royalties, the, 286. 
Coles, G., 344. 
Coalition of the parties, 355. 
Columbian Exposition, 411. 
Conditions of life in a new land, 417. 
Crowne, William, 58. 
Crown Point, 113, 133, 186, 189. 
Crown lands, 213. 
Cr6mazie, Octave, 425. 
Crees, 388. 
Crow-foot, 388. 
Crozier, Captain, 390. 
Craigellachie, 401. 
Craig, Sir James, 221. 
Crimea War, 323, 324. 
Cutler, Lyman, 333. 
Cutknife Creek, 395. 
Cunard Line, 432. 
Cunard, Samuel, 432. 
Currency, Canadian, 434. 

D. 

Dalhousie College, 251, 277. 
Dalhousie, Earl of, 263. 
D'Anville, 119. 



Daniel, Captain, 48. 

Daniel, Father, 60, 65. 

Daly, 309. 

Dablon, Father, 68. 

Day, Judge, 377. 

Davis, Jefferson, 339. 

D'Ailleboust, 67. 

D'Aiguillon, Duchesse, 60. 

Dartmouth, 123', 124. 

Daulac, 70. 

Dawson, Sir William, 421. 

D'Aulnay Chamisay, 51, 56. 

D'Avaugour, 71. 

Davoust, 60. 

De Bienville, 121. 

De Bougainville, 138, 146, 149. 

De Bourlamaque, 138, 148. 

De Bullion, Madame, 62. 

De Caen, 40, 41, 44. 

De Callieres, 89, 

De Conde, 39. 

De Courcelles, 78, 79, 82. 

De Drucour, 143, 144, 145. 

De Denonville, 89, 91, 97. 

De Gourgues, 18. 

De Gamache, 59. 

De Gaspe, 425. , 

De Guercheville, Madame, 28, 30. 

De Haro Channel, 332. 

De Haren, 240. 

De Hertel, Colonel, 296. 

De Lauson, 68. 

De Lery, 8. 

De Levis, 138, 146, 159, 160, 161, 

De la Galissonnifere, 121. 

De la Peltrie, Madame, 60. 

De la Jonquiere, 119, 120, 122. 

De la Noue, Father, 41. 

De la Verendrye, 113. 

De la Roche, 20. 

De Maisonneuve, 62. 

De Mesy, 74, 78. 

De Mille, 425. 

De Monts, 22, 23, 34. 

De Montmagny, 59, 62. 

De Queylus, Abbe, 69. 

De Ramesay, 150, 160. 

De Razilly, 51. 

De Roquemont, 43. 

De Rottenburg, 241. 



INDEX. 



485 



De Roberval, 15. 

De Silleri, 60. 

De Salaberry, 235, 244. 

De Tracy, 78. 

De Troyes, 90. 

De Ventadour, 41. 

Dearborn, General, 227, 236. 

Delfosse, 381. 

Denis of Honfleur, 8. 

Denys, Nicholas, 51, 56, 57. 

Denison, 403. 

D'Estournelle, 119. 

Desbarres, 200. 

Detroit, iii, 165, 173, 228. 

D' Iberville, 90, 104. 

Dickie, R. B., 344. 

Dieskau, 132, 135. 

Dinwiddie, 131. 

Disputed territory, 283, 311. 

Donnacona, 11, 14. 

Dollard, 69, 70. 

Dongan, 86, 89. 

Dominion Day, 353. 

Dominion elections, first, 357 ; parlia- 
ment, first, 357. 

Dominion census, first, 372; second, 383 ; 
third, 407. 

Dorchester, Lord, 209, 216. 

Downie, Captain, 250. 

Downing Street, 266. 

Douglas, Sir Howard, 281, 284; James, 
330. 

Doyle, Lawrence O'Connor, 279. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 19. 

Draper, 310. 

Drew, Lieutenant, 300. 

Drummond, Sir George, 246. 

Drummondville, 249. 

Dress in old French Canada, 168. 

Druilettes, Father, 67. 

Dupuy, 68. 

Du Vivier, 116. 

Duquesne, 122, 130. 

Duchambon, 117. 

Dumont, 72 ; Gabriel, 389, 399. 

Duck Lake, 389. 

Duvar, John Hunter, 426. 

Duchesneau, 84. 

Duluth, 90. 

Dundas Street, 214. 



Durham, Lord, 296, 303. 
Durham's Report, 306. 
Dual representation, 357. 
Dufferin, Lord, 373, 382. 

E. 

Earthquakes, 72, 320. 

Easter pasty, 172. 

Eastern Townships, 201. 

Eagle and Growler, 243. 

Edge Hill, 175. 

Education in Canada, 418, 419, 420, 421. 

Elgin, Lord, 310, 320. 

Embargo Act, 220. 

English and French colonies compared, 

141. 
England attacked by France, Spain, 

Holland, 190. 
Equal Rights Agitation, 407. 
Eric the Red, 3. 
Eries, extirpation of the, 67. 
Estates, subdivision of, 76. 
Esquimau, 400. 
Everlasting Salaries Bill, 274. 
Executive Council, 212. 
Exploits, river, 413. 



Fafard, Father, 392. 

Faillon, Abbe, 424. 

Family Compact, the, 260, 269, 277, 306. 

Fairfield, Governor, 313. 

Falkland, Lord, 316. 

Ferryland, 32. 

Feudal tenure, 75. 

Ferland, Abbe, 424. 

Fenians, the, 349, 358. 

Federal and legislative union, difference 

between, 352. 
Five Nations, 77. 

Fitzgibbon, Lieutenant James, 239. 
Finisterre, battle of, 120. 
Fisheries dispute, 405, 433. 
Fish Creek, battle of, 394. 
Fisher, Charles, 344. 
" Fifty-four Forty, or Fight," 331. 
Flfeche, Father la, 27. 
Fleming, Sanford, 406, 422. 



486 



INDEX. 



Food, French Period, 171. 

Forbes, General, 147. 

Fort Beausejour, 125, 127, 129; Chippe- 
wyan, 114, 255; Cumberland, 192; 
Duquesne, 131, 147; Douglas, 256; 
Erie, 248 ; Edward, 135, 139 ; Fred- 
erick, 179, 193 ; Frontenac, 147 ; Garry, 
257. 363; George, 135; Louis, 47; 
Niagara, 149 ; Oswego, 138 ; Pitt, 147, 
175, 391, 392 ; Reliance, 257 ; Rouge, 
113; Schlosser, 241, 300; St. Charles, 
113; St. Joseph, 200; William Henry, 
136, 140; William, 256; Venango, 121. 

Forsyth, the case of, 273. 

Eraser River, 331, 369. 

Franklin's map, 315. 

Franklin, Sir John, 257. 

French, colony in Florida, 18; fisheries 
question, 96; shore disputes, 163,412, 

415. 
French Canadians, after the conquest, 
164; attitude toward the Rebellion, 

295- 
Frenchtown, battle of, 236. 
Frechette, 425. 
Fredericton, 180, 200. 
Frobisher, 19. 
Frog Lake Massacre, 392. 
Frolic, the, 234. 
Frontenac, 84, 87, 94, 97, 103. 
Fuca, Straits of, 332. 
Fur-trade, 77. 

G. 

Gabarus Bay, 117, 143. 

Gage, General, 185. 

Gait, John, 259 ; Alexander T., 337, 343, 

344. 381. 
Gander River, 413. 
Garneau, Francois Xavier, 424. 
Geneva Award, the, 371. 
Geological Survey, the, 421. 
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 19, 20. 
Glen, 98. 

Gladwyn, Major, 174. 
Glengarry, Highlanders, 235 ; militia, 292. 
Glenelg, Lord, 286. 
Goodridge, 416. 
Governor and executive, 212. 
Governor's Road, 214. 



Governor-General, the, 351. 

Gosford, Lord, 268, 292, 296. 

Gore, Colonel, 293. 

Gore, Fighting militia of the, 299. 

Gourlay, Robert, 271. 

Gowan, Judge, 377. 

Grass, 200. 

Grand Pre, 95, 120, 129. 

Gray, Colonel John Hamilton, 343, 344. 

Gray, Judge John Hamilton, 344. • 

Greenland Colony, 3, 4. 

Green Bay Mission, 82, 85. 

Great Meadows, 132. 

Great Fish River, 257. 

Grit, 356. 

Griffin, the, 85. 

Guy, John, 31. 

Guerriere, the, 234. 

H. 

Harold Harfager, 3. 

Haverhill, massacre of, 108. 

Handfield, Major, 129. 

Halifax, 123, 149. 

" Halifax Currency," 434. 

Halifax fisheries award, 381. 

Habitans, the, 167, 168. 

Half-breeds, the, 386, 387. 

Haliburton, 423, 424. 

Hall's Bay, 413. 

Haldimand, Governor, 192, 198, 208. 

Harrison, General, 236. 

Harvey, Sir John, 239, 245, 286, 313, 316, 

328, 333. 
Hampton, General Wade, 244. 
Handcock, Major, 248. 
Haviland, Colonel, 161 
Haviland, T. H., 344. 
Hebert, Louis, 40. 
Hubert (sculptor) , 427. 
Heavysege, Charles, 426. 
Henry, Captain John, 224. 
Henry, W. A., 344. 

Head, Sir Francis Bond, 276, 298, 301. 
Hill, Sir John, 109. 
Hickory Island, 301. 
Hincks, Sir Francis, 309, 337. 
High Commission meets at Washington, 

370. 



INDEX. 



487 



Hochelaga, 12. 

Hotel Dieu, 60. 

Howe, Captain, 125. 

Howe, Lord, 146, 190. 

Howe, Joseph, 278, 316, 348, 360, 375, 423. 

Howe's libel case, 278. 

Holboine, Admiral, 139. 

Howard, Captain, 396. 

Holland, 190. 

Hor7iet, the, 234. 

House of Assembly, 213. 

House of Commons, 351. 

Hudson, Henry, 32. 

Hudson Bay territory, no. 

Hudson Bay and Northwest Companies' 

rivalry, 254. 
Hudson Bay Company, 358, 361. 
Huntington, L. S., 375. 
Hunters' Lodges, 296, 302. 
Hurons, the, 65, 66, 173. 
Hutchinson, Governor, 196. 
Hungry Year, the, 204. 
Hull, General, 227. 

L 

He au Noix, 189; d'Orleans, 151; St. 
Jean, 180. 

Illinois River, 82, 85. 

Imperial conference, 406. 

Imperial federation, 373, 440. 

Immigrants, American, 270. 

Independence, Declaration of American, 
189 ; American, acknowledged by Eng- 
land, 191 ; Canadian, 440. 

Inheritance, Law of, 75. 

Industries, 434. 

Intellectual progress, 417. 

Interprovincial conference, 406. 

Inglis, Doctor John, 217. 

Inter-Oceanic Company, 373. 

Iroquois attacks, 41, 63, 67, 70, 87, 92; 
treaty with the English, 67; loyalists, 
189. 
" Iroquois Track," the, 64. 
Izzard, General, 244. 



Jackson, Andrew, 252. 
Java, the, 234. 



Jenkins, Captain, 237. 

Jersey, Earl of, 412. 

Jesuits, the, 28, 29, 41. 

yesuites, Relations des, 59. 

Jesuit missions to Hurons, 60; to Iro- 
quois, 68, 79. 

Jesuits' Estates Act, 407. 

Jogues, Father, 64. 

jolliet, 81. 

Johnson, Sir William, 133, 135, 136, 149, 
I7S> 189. 

Johnson, John M., 344. 

Johnstone, James W., 316. 

K. 

Kavanagh, Lawrence, 287. 

Kane, Paul, 427. 

Kars, 325. 

Keelness, 4. 

Keewatin, 385. 

Kempt, Sir James, 266, 278. 

Kent, Duke of, 216. 

Kellog, E. H., 381. 

Kingston, 215, 307. 

Kirby, William, 425. 

Kingsford, Doctor, 425. 

Kirke, Admiral, 43, 48. 

Knight-Baronets of Nova Scotia, 47. 

Kolapore Cup, 373. 

Kondiaronk, 92. 



La Barre, 87. 

La Chesnaye, 102. 

La Colle Mill, 248. 

La Moth Cadillac, in. 

La Heve, 51. 

La Salle, 84, 86. 

La Tour, Claude de, 47, 49, 52. 

La Tour, Charles de, 31, 47, 49, 51, 58. 

Lachine, 85, 93. 

Laleman, Father, 41, 66. 

Lake Region, the, 81, 209. 

Lake of the Woods, 113. 

Lake Champlain, 189. 

Lake Erie, battle of, 242. 

Land, sale and purchase of, 177. 

Land Purchase Bill, 326. 

Lafontaine, 309. 



488 



INDEX. 



Langevin, Sir Hector, 344. 

Law, French, 176. 

Laurier, Hon. Wilfred, 409. 

Laval, 69, 71, 74, 78. 

Lawrence, Fort, 125. 

Lawrence, Major, 126. 

Le Borgne, 57. 

Le Loutre, Abbe, 124. 

Le Jeune, Father, 59. 

Le May, Pamphile, 425. 

Leif the Lucky, 3. 

" Leif s Booths," 3. 

Legislative Assembly at Halifax, first in 

Canada, 147. 
Legislative Council, 212. 
Lennox, 214. 
Lepine, 378. 

Lescarbot, Marc, 25, 422. 
Leopard, the, and the Chesapeake, 220. 
Lewiston burned, 246. 
Lexington, 185. 
Liberal convention, 410. 
Lighthouse Point, 118. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 339. 
Liquor trafific, 71, 95. 
Literature, Canadian, 422. 
Lods et Venis, 177. 
Logan, Sir William, 421. 
London, 215. 
Long Island, 189. 
Lome, Lord, 426. 

Louisburg, iii, 118, 120, 139, 144, 145. 
Louisiana, 86, 106. 
Loudoun, Earl of, 138. 
Lount, Samuel, 299, 301. 
Loyalists, the, 194, 198, 200, 202. 
Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper 

Canada, 235. 
Lundy's Lane, 249. 
Lunenburg, 124. 

M. 

Machias, 52, 193. 

Masse, Father Enemond, 28, 41. 

Marguerie, 61. 

Mance, Mademoiselle, 62. 

Marquette, Father, 81, 82. 

Manitoba, Lake, 114. 

Manitoba Act, the, 365. 



Manners and customs (French Period), 

167, 168. 
Marchand, Father, 392. 
Macdonald, Sir John A., 337, 343, 373, 

408 ; government, 376, 382, 407. 
Macdonald, A. A., 344, 
Macdonell, Colonel, 237. 
Material progress in Canada, 428, 429, 

430, 431. 432. 433. 434, 435. 436, 437- 
Marmette, Joseph, 425. 
Mair, Charles, 226, 426. 
Mackenzie, Hon. Alexander, 377, 408. 
Mackenzie, Alexander, 254. 
Mackenzie, Wm. Lyon, 272, 274, 297. 
Mackenzie River, the, 257, 361. 
Mackinaw, 227. 
Macedonia, the, 234. 
MacNab, Sir Allen, 299, 300, 310. 
MacNab-Morin Government, 338. 
Maine, eastern districts seized, 251. 
Maine boundary question, 311. 
Maritime provinces, the, 217, 247 ; union, 

338. 342. 
Maugerville, 180, 192, 198. 
Marriage, 177. 

March of 104th Regiment, 235. 
Mathews, 301 ; Captain, 273. 
Maitland, Governor, 273. 
Mars Hill, 312. 
Mason and Slidell, 340. 
McGee, T. D'Arcy, 343, 344, 358. 
McDougall, Hon. William, 343, 344, 358, 

363- 
McCully, J., 344. 
Mclntyre, land agent, 313. 
McLachlan, Alexander, 426. 
Membertou, 25, 27, 29. 
Mennonites, the, 385. 
Metis, the, 363, 387. 
Merritt, W. H., 430. 
Meares, Captain, 255. 
Metcalf, Sir Charles, 309. 
Mitchell, Peter, 344. 
Missions to the Hurons, 61. 
Mission, Green Bay, 82. 
Mississippi, the, 81, 86. 
Mistassinni, Lake, 82. 
Miquelon, island of, 163. 
Middleton, General, 391, 394. 
Midlanders, the, 394. 



INDEX. 



489 



Michilimackinac, 173, 228, 250. 

" Minute Men," 186. 

Michigan Territory, 227. 

Miramichi fire, the, 281. 

Militia Bill, the, 341. 

Military system, 435, 436. 

Mines, 433. 

Mount Royal, 13. 

Montreal, 62, 63, 162, 166, 3IG. 

Montagnais, the, 60. 

Moyne, Father le, 68, 69. 

Mohawks, the, 79, 136, 201. 

Mowat, Sir Oliver, 344, 410. 

Monck, Lord, 355, 357. 

Monk, Judge, 261. 

Monckton, General, 126, 129, 151, 159. 

Mortgage, 177. 

Montgomery, General, 186, 188. 

Moravian town, 226, 243. 

Morrison, Colonel, 245. 

Montgomery's Tavern, 299. 

Moodie, Colonel, 299. 

Montcalm, 138, 139, 143, 150, 157, 158. 

Montmorenci, 151. 

Monument to Wolfe and Montcalm, 159. 

Munro, Colonel, 139. 

Munro doctrine, the, 439. 

Murray, General, 129, 151, 160. 

Municipal institutions, 308. 

Musgrave, Antony, 368, 

N. 

Nashwaak, Fort, 105 ; River, 180. 

Nassau, 214. 

Naval duels between Great Britain and 
the United States, 233. 

Napierville, 297. 

Navy Island, 300. 

Navigation laws repealed, 322. 

National policy, 379, 382. 

Newfoundland, 7, 14, 31, 32, 95, 96, 106, 
no, 162, 288, 289, 360, 412, 416. 

Newfoundland amalgamated assembly, 
328. 

New York, 32, 77. 

New Company of the Hundred Asso- 
ciates, the, 42. 

New Amsterdam, 77. 

New subjects, 176. 



New Brunswick, 179, 199, 218, 281 ; Uni- 
versity of, 281 ; school law dispute, 
372. 

Newark, 214, 239, 246. 

New Orleans, 251. 

New nation, the, 256. 

New Caledonia, 331. 

New Westminster, 333. 

Nepiscaw River, 82. 

Necessity, Fort, 132. 

Nelson, Doctor Wolfred, 265, 292, 293 ; 
Robert, 297. 

Niagara, Fort, 91, 113, 149, 133, 148. 

Niagara, 214, 215 ; frontier, the, 239, 246. 

Nicholson, Colonel, 109. 

Ninety-four resolutions, the, 267. 

Northmen, the, 2, 4. 

Noirot, Father, 41. 

North America granted to Madame de 
Guercheville, 29. 

North-west, the, 113, 254, 329, 358, 361, 

384, 385, 386, 411 ; mounted police, 

385, 436; campaign, the, 391. 
Northcote, 394, 396. 
Nor'-westers, 255. 

Nootka, 255. 

Nova Scotia, 46, 121, 123, 179, 276, 359, 

404. 
Notre Dame de Montreal, Society of, 62, 

69. 
Noble, Colonel, 119. 
Nova Scotian, the, 278.' 

O. 

O'Brien, 427. 

Odelltown, 244, 297. 

O'Donnell, Bishop, 289. 

Ogdensburg, 236. 

Ohio valley, 121, 130, 193 ; Company, 

131- 

Ojibways, 388. 

Old subjects, 176. 

" One Hundred Associates," 59, 72. 

Onondagas, 67, 68. 

Ontario and Quebec, 371. 

" Order of a Good Time," 26. 

Oregon, the, 256. 

Orders-in-Council, 220. 

Oswego River, 69 ; Fort, 113. 

Oswego, 248. 



490 



INDEX. 



Ottawas, 173. 
Ottawa, 258. 
Ouinipon, Lake, 113. 



Paris, Treaty of, 162. 

Patterson, Colonel Walter, 181. 

Parr, Governor, 198. 

Parrtown, 198. 

Papineau, Louis, 263, 267, 292. 

Pakenham, 251. 

Palmer, E., 344. 

Parliament buildings burned, 321. 

Parliament removed to Ottawa, 320. 

Parker, Captain, 325. 

Pacific scandal, the, 375. 

Penobscot, 47, 49, 95. 

Perrot, Nicholas, 81, 90. 

Pemaquid, 105. 

Peace River, 114, 369. 

Pepperell, William, 116, 117, 118, 119. 

Pennsylvania, 121, 138. 

Peel, Paul, 428. 

Petite Rochelle, 179. 

Peacock, the, 234. 

Perry, Commodore, 242. 

Penetanguishene, 256. 

Perth settlement, 258. 

Permanent Revenue Act of 1774, 263. 

Pelee Island, fight at, 301. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 309. 

Phips, Sir William, 100, 102. 

Pilgrim fathers, the, 42. 

Piziquid, 129. 

Pitt, WiUiam, 140, 142, 184. 

Pittsburg, 147. 

Pictou, 180. 

Pickett, Captain, 333. 

Plains of Abraham, 154, 157, 187. 

Plessis, M., 221. 

Plattsburg, 236. 

Placentia, 96. 

Pontgrave, 21, 22, 34. 

Poutrincourt, 23, 31. 

Port Royal, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 48, 53, 108, 

109. 
Point Levi, 152. 
Poundmaker, 389, 391, 396. 
Port Moody, 401. 



Port la Joie, 180. 

Port Razoir, 199. 

" Poor Man's Society," 277. 

Postal system, Canadian, 434. 

Polette, Judge, 376. 

Pontiac, 173. 

Pope, W. H., 344. 

Prince Edward Island, 112, 145, 179, 180, 

181, 217, 287," 374; land question in, 

288, 325, 327. 
Prince Albert, 388, 389, 391. 
Prideaux, General, 148. 
Presqu'ile, 173. 
Prince Arthur, 360. 
Prince of Wales, 339. 
Prince, Colonel, 303. 
Prevost, Sir George, 222. 
Proctor, Colonel, 228. 
Provisional government, 298, 363. 
Puget Sound, 332. 
Purdy, Colonel, 244. 
Putnam, W. L., 406. 



Quebec, 42, 43, 59, 71, 78, 150, 151, 159, 

160, 161, 165. 
Quebec Act, the, 176, 178, 185. 
Quebec Resolutions, 345. 
Qu'Appelle, 391. 

Queen's Rangers of Virginia, 198, 214. 
Queenston Heights, 230. 
Quincy, 252. 



R. 



Razilly, Isaac de, 51, 52. 

Ramesay, de, 150, 159. 

Railway, Intercolonial, 322, 380; between 
Montreal and Portland, 322 ; conven- 
tion at Portland, 323 ; European and 
North American, 323, 372; Grand 
Trunk, 323 ; Transcontinental, 373 ; 
Canadian Pacific syndicate, 383. 

Railways, 428. 

Recollets, 37, 59, 80. 

Religious institutions, 60. 

Remy, Fort, 94. 

Red River, 113, 219, 361, 363, 364. 

Restigouche, 179. 



INDEX. 



491 



Reads, John, 426. 

Reid, George, 427. 

Responsible Government, 208, 218, 260, 
307, 3". 315. 317, 318, 326, 329. 

Red River Colony, 256. 

Reform Party, 274. 

Reformers, Declaration of the, 298, 307. 

Reformer and Conservative, 308. 

Rebellion Losses Bill, 319, 320. 

Redan, the, 325. 

Representation by population, 336. 

Rideau Canal, 258. 

Richelieu, 42, 48. 

Richelieu River, 165. 

Riel, Louis, 363, 377, 386, 387, 388, 389, 
390. 391. 392, 393. 394, 395. 39^. 397. 
398, 399- 

Riall, General, 248. 

Right of Search, 219. 

Ridgeway, 349. 

Roberval, de, 15, 16. 

Roche, de la, 20. 

Rochelle, 62. 

Roland, Fort, 94. 

Rocky Mountains, 114. 

Royal Society of Canada, 426, 427. 

Royal Canadian Academy, 427. 

Royal Canadian One Hundredth regi- 
ment, 324. 

Royal Commission of Inquiry, 291. 

Royal Newfoundland regiment, 288. 

Royal Nova Scotia regiment, 217. 

Royal Military College, 436. 

Royal WiUiain, the, 432. 

Royal Greens, 201. 

Rochambeau, 191. 

Roberts, Captain, 228. 

Ross, 251. 

Robinson, John Beverley, 272, 437. 

Rosario Channel, 332. 

Russell, Lord, 291. 

Ryswick, 103, 104, 106. 

Ryerson, Edgerton, 247, 298, 420. 



Sable Island, 8. 
Sackett's Harbour, 232, 238. 
Saguenay, the, 11. 
Salmon Falls, 99. 



Sangster, Charles, 426. 

San Juan, 332. 

Sandwich, fight at, 302. 

Saratoga, 190. 

Saskatchewan, 114, 361, 385; rebellion, 

384, 386, 388. . 
Schenectady, 98. 
Science in Canada, 421. 
Scotch in Acadie, 46; in Cape Breton 

and P. E. I., 219. 
Scott, Winfield, 231, 314, 333. 
Scott, Thomas, murdered by Riel, 364. 
Secord, Laura, 240. 
Seigneurs, the, 75. 
Seigneurial tenure abolished, 324. 
Selwyn, Doctor, 421. 
Selkirk, 219, 256. 
Selkirk estate, the, 327. 
Senate, the, 351. 
Senecas, the, 83, 91, 173. 
Semple, Governor, 256. 
Seven Years' War, 182. 
Seventy-two Resolutions, the, 345. 
Separate schools, 420. 
Sewell, Chief Justice, 261. 
Shea, Sir Ambrose, 344. 
Shannon, the, and the Chesapeake, 246. 
Shavvnees, the, 173. 
Shelburne, 199. 
Sheaffe, General, 231. 
Sherbrooke, 251. 
Shirley, Governor, 116, 126, 133. 
Ship Hector at Pictou, 219. 
Shipping, 431. 
Shubenacadie Canal, 278. 
Simcoe, Governor, 214, 216. 
Sinicoe, schooner, the, 232. 
Simpson, Sir George, 257, 330. 
Smith, Charles Douglas, 288. 
Smith, Albert J., 345. 
Smith, Sir Donald, 401. 
Smith, Goldwin, 425. 
Smythe, Tracey, 281. 
Soccage, free and common, 176. 
Social life in New France, 170. 
Sorel, 78. 

Sons of Liberty, 292. 
Soto, de, 17. 

Sovereign Council, the, 74. 
States- Rights doctrine, 339. 



492 



INDEX. 



Stadacona, ii, 13. 
Stairs, Captain, 436. 
Stanley, Lord, 309. 
Stamp Act, the, 184. 
Steeves, W. H., 344. 
Stephen, George, 401. 
Stony Creek, 239. 
Stoneland, 3. 

Strahan, Doctor John, 272. 
Street, George F., 285. 
Strange, General, 393. 
Subercase, 94. 
Sulpicians, the, 69, 85. 
Suite, Benjamin, 424. 
Susa, convention of, 44. 
Swift current, 394. 
Sydenham, Lord, 309. 

St. 

St. Anne's Point, 176, 198, 200. 

St. Benoit, 294. 

St. Castin, 95, 109. 

St. Charles, Fort, 113. 

St. Charles, battle at, 294. 

St. Croix, 24. 

St. Denis, battle at, 294. 

St. Eustache, 294. 

Ste. Foye, battle of, 160. 

St. Germain-en-Laye, 44, 50. 

St. George's bay, 413. 

St. Ignace, 65. 

St. John's, Newfoundland, 106, 162, 288, 

328, 413, 415. 
St. John River, 24, 52, 121. 
St. John's Island, 112, 199. 
St. John, 198, 200, 380. 
St. Joseph, 65. 
St. Just, Letellier de, 381. 
St. Lawrence, 8, 11, 165. 
Ste. Marie, 66. 
St. Pierre Island, 163. 
St. Sauveur, 30. 

T. 
Tadousac, 21. 
Talon, 74, 76, 80, 82. 
Tarleton, 191. 
Taylor, Colonel, 243. 
Tache, Sir Etienne P., 344. 



Tache, Archbishop, 364, 

Tenure of fealty and homage, the, 42. 

Tenure of office despatch, 306. 

Tea tax, 184. 

Tecumseh, 226, 228. 

Temple, 58. 

Telegraph systems, Canadian, 435. 

Telephone, invention of, 435. 

Terra Corterealis, 8 

Thorwald, 3. 

Thorfinn Karlsefni, 4. 

Three Rivers, 61, 165, 166, 189, 223. 

Thompson, Sir John, 409, 410, 412. 

Thompson, Charles Poulett, 305. 

Ticonderoga, 138, 139, 146, 186. 

Timber duties, 218. 

Tippecanoe, 226. 

Tilley, Sir S. L., 337, 342, 344. 

Tour, Charles de la, 31, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 

54. 57- 58. 

Tour, Claude de la, 47, 49. 

Tour, Lady la, 49, 56. 

Tonti, Henry de, 85. 

Townshend, General, 151, 159. 

Todd, Alpheus, 425. 

Toronto, 215, 216, 274, 299. 

Tory, 356. 

Treaties, Canada gains right to negoti- 
ate, 407. 

Treaty of Aix-Ia-Chapelle, 121 ; of Paris, 
162, 173, 176; of Versailles, 193, 194; 
of Amity and Commerce, 216; of 
Ghent, 251; the Ashburton, 314; the 
Reciprocity, 324, 348 ; the Oregon, 332 ; 
of Washington, 370; of Utrecht, no; 
of Ryswick, 103, 104, 106. 

Trent affair, the, 340. 

Turgot, 194. 

Tupper, Sir Charles, 337, 342, 344, 406. 

Turcotte, 424. 

Twelve Resolutions, the, 279. 

Tyrrell, 411. 

U. 



United Colonies of New England, 

66, 186. 
United Empire list, 202. 
United States, the frigate, 234. 
Uniacke, R. J., 287. 
Uniforms and arms, 169. 



the. 



INDEX. 



493 



Universal Postal Union, 434. 
Upper House, elective, 325. 
Ursulines, 70. 
Utrecht, treaty of; no. 

V. 

Van Buren, President, 314. 

Van Corlaer, 64. 

Van Egmond, 299. 

Van Rensselaer, General, 227. 

Van Schultz, 302. 

Vancouver Island, 330. 

Vancouver Island and British Columbia 

separated, 333, 402. 
Vancouver, Captain George, 255. 
Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 108, 112, 113, 132, 

142, 148, 152. 
Vauban, in. 
Vasco di Gama, 6. 
Venango, Fort, 121. 
Verendrye, de la, 113. 
Vercheres, Madeline de la, 102. 
Vergor, 127, 156. 
Verrazzano, 8. 
Victoria, 330. 
Victoria Bridge, the, 338. 
Viel, Father Nicholas, 41. 
Vigilance committee, 298. 
Vignan, Nicholas, 36. 
Vigilant, the, 118. 
Villebon, 104. 
Ville-Marie, 62, 69. 
Villiers, de, 132. 
Vincent, Colonel, 239. 
Vineland, 3. 

Virginian militia, the, 134. 
Voltigeurs, 235. 
Volunteer Force, 325. 



W. 



Walker, Sir Hoveden, 109. 

Walker, Admiral, 414. 

War of Spanish succession, 107; of 
Austrian succession, 115 ; Seven 
Years', the, 137 ; of 1812, 225, 252. 

War feeling, Maine and New Brunswick, 

313- 

Warren, Admiral, 118. 



Washington, George, 131, 134, 183, 189, 
191, 217, 267. 

Washington, treaty of, 405; city of, cap- 
tured, 251. 

Wasp, the, 234. 

Waterways, inland, 438. 

Webb, General, 139. 

Webster, Daniel, 313. 

West India Company, 76. 

West, the struggle for, 130. 

West, Sir Sackville, 406. 

Weir, Lieutenant, 293. 

Welsford, Major, 325. 

Wentvvorth, Sir John, 217. 

Wetherall, Colonel, 293. 

Whelan, E., 344., 

Whitbourne, Captain Richard, 32. 

Whiteway, Sir William, 413, 416, 

Willis, Judge, 273. 

Wilkinson, General, 244. 

Wilkes, Captain, 341. 

William Henry, Fort, 105, 136. 

Williams, Sir Fenvvick, 325. 

Wilson, Sir Daniel, 421. 

Wimbledon, 373. 

Wilmot, Lemuel Allan, 284. 

Winnipeg, 366. 

Winnipegoosis, 114. 

Winslow, Colonel, 126, 129. 

Winthrop's expedition against Montreal, 
loi. 

Wives brought out for colonists, 80. 

Wolfe, General, 142, 150, 151, 158. 

Wolfe's Cove, 155. 

Wolseley, General Sir Garnet, 365, 403. 

Wool, Captain, 230. 

World's Fair, the, 411. 

Worrell estate, the, 326. 



Y. 
Yeo, Sir James, 241. 
Yorktown, 191. 
York, 215. 

York, Little, 216, 237, 238. 
York Factory, 257. 
Young Street, 214. 
Young Teazer, 247. 
Young, John, 277. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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